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Submitted by Neal Lofthouse

Moira Says Yes - At Last
Leading article
Picturegoer July 8th 1950


She's dancing in front of the cameras again.

     No one who remembers - and who can forget? - her brilliant performance in 'The Red Shoes', will wish anything but the best of luck to Moira Shearer, who starts work on her new film, 'Tales of Hofmann', this month.

     Certainly we'll wish her more luck than she had with her only picture to date. Although 'The Red Shoes' was a triumph for Moira it had a sad-sweet tang.

     Films of the classical ballet, declared Moira, could only prove successful if a new and more subtle technique were adopted in making them. And 'The Red Shoes', she complained, only scratched the surface of ballet.

     Consistantly she rejected the flood of screen offers that an excited filmdom poured down on her. She was a dancer, she said, not an actress. Before she accepted a part she must be certain it was the right one.

     The decision cost her thousands of pounds.

     It cost her too, a certain amount of distress.

     For a long spell, she says, she was almost afraid to pick up a newspaper in case she found herself being taken to task for attacking the film world's methods or refusing to make another picture.

     Now she has said yes. The part - Olympia, the puppet doll - calls for more dancing and less acting than in 'The Red Shoes', and obviously, after such a long string of refusals, must be what she has been waiting for.

     It ought to be, and picturegoers will join whole-heartedly in hoping that it will be, an unimpaired sucess for Moira Shearer. Yes we're glad to see her back. She's a true artist, of the sort we really need.


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