The Red Shoes

1948 · 133 min · dir. Emeric Pressburger, Michael Powell

The Red Shoes is a 1948 British dance drama film written, produced and directed by the duo of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It follows Victoria Page, an aspiring ballerina who joins the world-renowned Ballet Lermontov, owned and operated by Boris Lermontov, who tests her dedication to ballet by making her choose between her career and her romance with composer Julian Craster. It marked the feature film debut of Shearer, an established ballerina, and also features Robert Helpmann, Léonide Massine, and Ludmilla Tchérina, other renowned dancers from the ballet world. The metafictional plot is based on the 1845 fairytale by Hans Christian Andersen, and features a ballet within it by the same title, also adapted from the Andersen work. Synopsis from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.