"The Red Shoes" (1948)

During the summer, Amsterdam's Carré Theatre has found the way to still attract visitors - and it is a very nice & original idea - they have transformed the stage into cinema. The real stage is therefore just a decoration, hidden with a stage curtain and chairs are placed ON the stage facing the projection screen. Visitors are entering from the back and welcomed inside trough performers entrance so its quite interesting to see it from a different perspective (I have been in Carré many times but never saw audience from a stage). The repertoire is all about old classic movies and the one I went to was "The Red Shoes" (1948) by legendary Michael Powell whom I loved for a long time.

"The Red Shoes" follows a story about touring ballet company led by strong-willed and impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) who is in the middle of all the excitement of theatre life. While the whole company is running around in some kind of chaotic order, Lermontov is God-like creature who decides who,where and why - he somehow got persuaded to give chance to beautiful,red-haired Vicky Page (Moira Shearer) and young composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring) and builds a big plan around these two new talents who soon prove to be stars of the first calibre - composer works on a excellent new ballet "The Red Shoes" (based on Andersen's dark fairy tale about magic shoes that make its owner dance to death) and Vicky is a sensational new discovery. What Lermontov is not aware of is that his new discoveries actually fell in love and have affair that everybody is aware of except himself : when he finds out,he is enraged and fires Craster. Vicky leaves too, following her heart and marries Craster to Lermontov's big disappointment.  The company goes on but Lermontov is getting more and more obsessed with idea that he lost his beautiful young star and he schemes how to bring her back under his command. Vicky Page is tempted to go back to dancing - after all,she lives for it and loves it as she loves life - but eventually is forced to choose between dancing or marriage.,loving husband and demonic impresario on each side of her in a terrible,brutal scene.

Excellent movie - Moira Shearer who was a real ballerina is of course stunning in the main role,she was not schooled actress but a natural perfect for this role and her acting completely impressed the director. Austrian actor Anton Walbrook is also brilliant in his role of possessive impresario,though his motives are not really clear - he is always very distant and obviously not really interested in Vicky Page as a woman - my guess is that Lermontov is more like Mephisto-like character who offers success and fame in exchange of her heart. He needs to posses her and show her off like a crown jewel of his company so when she "cheats" by falling in love,he gets incredibly angry and won't let her go out of his hands. It's an old movie that inspired many more ballet-movies ("American in Paris") that followed,made huge star of Moira Shearer and deservedly belongs to any classic movies anthology.