Submitted by
Dibyaduti Purkayastha (Tipu)
Gotta Dance, Gotta Dance
The Red Shoes
A young ballerina, dazzled by success and torn between love and ballet,
throws herself under a train.
From: Halliwell's hundred: A nostalgic choice of films from the golden age
The years have not diminished the cornerstone of J. Arthur Rank's 'art gallery'
of the forties. After the flop of Caesar and Cleopatra, dire forebodings
were voiced about the commercial chances of a ballet film, but the rare
elements in it fused to make a box-office wonder, as much in the states
as in Europe. I saw it on a glum autumn day when I was in the army on Salisbury
Plain, at a cinema curiously set in the innards of a medieval banqueting
house. The glimpse it preferred into an intensely private world was overwhelming:
I did not understand the compulsion to dance, and probably still don't,
but I emerge full of respect for the fanatical dedication, the triumphing
over physical discomfort, and the brilliant talent required to make a ballet
star. Luckily prints can still be obtained which duplicate the original
glowing colours required to clothe the theme in scintillating raiment.
The least satisfactory part of the entertainment is the plot, conveyed above
in one sentence which makes one wince to write it. For well above an hour
there is no plot at all, just an account of the success in this strange
world of a young dancer played with great delicacy by Moira Shearer and
a young composer played with sickly make-up by Marius goring as an unabashed
boor. As soon as they marry, he changes character so radically as to demand
that she give up her art to iron his shirt. She decides to leave him instead,
but when he reappears in her Monte Carlo dressing-room just before curtain
up, sulking like a spoilt schoolboy and not unnaturally evoking a few harsh
words from her temperamental impresario, she goes suddenly to pieces and
throws herself over a convenient balustrade into the path of a passing train.
There is an indication that we are supposed to believe that in doing so
she was possessed by her red dancing shoes, as was the heroine of the ballet
she was about to perform, based on the Hans Andersen fairy tale; but the
film has given no prior warning that we are about to plunge into this kind
of fantasy, so it is not effective; nor is the shot of Ms. Shearer expiring
amidst globbets of tomato ketchup. It is as though P and P, having explored
every nook and cranny of the ballet world to their satisfaction, had decided
that since the end had to come somehow, it might as well be this way as
not. But however unsatisfactory it may be from the point of good taste as
well as drama, it does provide two memorable brief moments. The first is
only fleeting, as Miss Shearer's dresser realizes her mistress is going
to kill herself and runs off arms outstretched in one direction to get help,
just as Shearer dances off arms outstretched in the other: there is something
impressionist and disturbing in the mirror image. The second is the opportunity
it affords for Anton Walbrook's speech before the deep red curtain of the
theatre, a speech shouted at the audience through barely-controlled tears:
'Ladies and gentlemen - I am sorry to tell you - that Miss Page - is unable
to dance - tonight. Nor indeed - on any other night. Nevertheless - e have
decided to present 'The Red Shoes' - it is the ballet that made her name,
whose name she made. We present it - because we think - she would have wished
it.'
It doesn't sound much on paper, but it has to be experienced through the
dark genius of Walbrook's performance, every word apparently torn by its
roots from his reluctant larynx and twisted through his Germanic pronunciation
which turns gentlemen into shentlemen and the title of the ballet into something
that sounds like Zeredshussss... His presentation of the word 'nevertheless'
is also something special, accompanied by flailing helpless arms and the
suggestion of a facial tic. It is a good thing however that we are treated
to only a few frames of the ensuing stage performance, in which a moving
spotlight replaces the leading lady; it is an impractical idea from which
we are mercifully protected by the end title.
Having got the last five minutes out of the way, we can affirm that the
rest of the film is all pleasure, except perhaps for the title cards, in
which bald non-serif lettering accords badly with the film's artistic pretensions.
We open on the dingy upper circle staircase at Covent Garden as half berserk
students rush to occupy the uncomfortable seats after queueing for six hours.
The film carefully sets up all the characters before the curtain rises.
The ballet stars limbering up nervously backstage. Shearer in a box with
her aunt, who is trying to persuade Lermontov to watch her perform. Lermontov
hiding behind the curtains of a stage box, wagging a finger to indicate
non-acceptance of her invitation. And Goring in the upper circle increasingly
livid as the music being played has been stolen from him. As Massine peeps
through the curtain at the distinguished audience, and a girl at the front
row of the balcony near falls over at a glimpse of Lermontov, there is magic
in the air.
Eventually Lermontov meets the young heroine at a party:
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Lermontov:
-
Why do you want to dance?
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Vicki:
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Why do you want to live?
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Lermontov:
-
I don't know exactly, but I must.
-
Vicky:
-
That's my answer too.
Later, before giving her her big chance, he expands his theme:
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Lermontov:
-
I want something more - I want to create. I want to make something big
out of something little. But first I must ask you the same question. What
do you want out of life? To love?
-
Vicki:
-
To dance!
The role of the lofty, reclusive impresario is magnificent one for Walbrook,
whether lording it in a fading stuccoed villa high above the Mediterranean,
flopping around a hotel room in a multi-coloured kaftan and suede shoes,
or impeccably attired for rehearsal in dark glasses, blacks suit and spats.
The main achievement of P and P in this film is to make us look at people
through fresh eyes, and to give us a series of vivid impressions of a world
which few of us will enter. Massine donning a hair net. Miscellaneous activity
in the corners of the Covent Garden labyrinth. The designer (82-year old
Albert Basserman in his last role) in tears because his door has been ruined.
The egomania and delusions of grandeur so inseparable from great talent
('what we have created tonight the whole world will be talking about tomorrow
morning.') The transition from overnight triumph to the cold rehearsal room
next morning, with the old star taunting the new one ('Ca va? Any swelling?
I mean the head.') The chaos of a press conference interrupted by telephone
calls and administrative problems. Above all the great and typical Archers
technical bravura: Vicki is dancing Swan Lake on a wet Saturday afternoon
at the tiny Mercury Theatre, and the camera pirouettes with her before fixing
on a close-up of Lermontov in the audience, followed by one of Vicki's startled,
red-framed eyes.
The central 'Ballet of the Red Shoes' is an entertainment I am scarcely
qualified to judge. It is pleasing, if rather self-consciously artistic:
I have enjoyed other screen ballets better. My favourite sequence in a film
overflowing with brilliant touches covers the evening when Vicki receives
from Lermontov a curt note: 'I hope you are free this evening: my car will
call for you at eight.' The impression of a warm Mediterranean evening is
only slightly marred by the fact that when she emerges from her Monte Carlo
hotel, dressed to kill the sun is so clearly casting shadows from overhears
that the seen must have been filmed in midday. The limousine takes her as
far as it can, to the foot of an apparently endless flight of stone steps
overgrown with grass. 'Montes, mademoiselle,' says the chauffer, and she
does, her voluminous bottle-green gown and twinkling tiara outlined finally
against the blue seas of the south. As she steps through a formal garden
on a shoulder of a hill, the image which comes to mind is that of Cinderella
arriving for the palace ball. But the house proves to be as neglected as
the plants, and when she finds Lermontov he is dressed in a blue smock,
red scarf and old trousers, discussing the future of the ballet company
with his intimates. Obviously, his surprised look says, he is too busy a
man to take a lady to dinner, and within two minutes she is outside again;
but he has promised to make her a star. Within, his friends grudgingly admit
she is charming, but Lermontov has in his eyes the gleam of a fanatic: 'I
know nothing about her charms, and I care less, but I tell you this, they
won't wait till the end, they'll applaud in the middle'.
His colleagues warn him not to be too disappointed if she decides to break
her career for marriage. He is scornful:
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Lermontov:
-
The dancer who relies upon the doubtful comforts of human love will never
be a great dancer.
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Craster:
-
That's all very well, but you can't alter human nature.
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Lermontov:
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No? I think you can do even better than that. You can ignore it.
And there starts the plot, to prove him wrong.
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