History YMMV / TheRedShoes1948

* AlternateCharacterInterpretation: Film critic Danny Peary, in his book ''Alternate Oscars'', regards Lermontov far more sympathetically than Julian. He sees Julian as the real villain for insisting that Vicki can't have her career ''and'' marriage to him, despite the fact that his career as a composer is unimpeded by same.

* TearJerker: The ending. [[spoiler:Vicki, unable to choose between a life with Julian and career in the ballet, attempts suicide via leaping off a balcony in front of a train. A shaken Boris announces that she will not be able to dance tonight, or ''any'' night, but as a mark of respect, ''The Ballet of the Red Shoes'' will go on, with an empty spotlight in her place. Bleeding and dying, Vicki asks Julian to remove the red shoes]].
** Also during that scene [[spoiler:the cast are completely shattered by the news that Vicki is dead, the shoemaker is crying beforehand while Boris shouts the words out, the cast try to hold it in as they awkwardly carry on, but one dancer has a breakdown on the left of the shoe shop and one of the others has to help her off stage and at the end the boyfriend crying]].
* SugarWiki/VisualEffectsOfAwesome: ''The Ballet of the Red Shoes'' is full of this, particuarly the segment where Vicky dances with a man-shaped newspaper.
* WhatDoYouMeanItsNotForKids: It's based on a fairy tale! And ballet! High culture! Never mind the ballet-within-a-film is avant-garde expressionist NightmareFuel where (just like the story) the heroine dances herself to death in the red shoes, and that's before the real-world framing story ends [[spoiler:with the heroine, torn between her love for her husband and her love for ballet, commits suicide by leaping off a balcony in front of a train.]]

** Also during that scene [[spoiler:the cast are completely shattered by the news that Vicki is dead, the shoemaker is crying beforehand while Boris shouts the words out, the cast try to hold it in as they awkwardly carry on but one dancer breakdown on the left of the shoe shop and one of the others has to help her off stage]].

** Except this ignores how in the penultimate scene, Julian says 'Vicki, you can dance anywhere in the world!' It wasn't that he wanted her to give up her whole career, he just didn't want her working with Lermontov. Considering how controlling Lermontov is, one can argue that Julan might have a point.

* TearJerker: The ending. [[spoiler:Vicki, unable to choose between a life with Julian and career in the ballet, so she attempts suicide via leaping off a balcony in front of a train. A shaken Boris announces that she will not be able to dance tonight, or ''any'' night, but as a mark of respect, ''The Ballet of the Red Shoes'' will go on, with an empty spotlight in her place. Bleeding and dying, Vicki asks Julian to remove the red shoes]].

* TearJerker: The ending. [[spoiler:Vicki, unable to choose between a life with Julian and career in the ballet, so she attempts suicide via leaping off a balcony in front of a train. A shaken Boris announces that she will not be able to dance tonight, or ''any'' night, but as a mark of respect, ''The Ballet of the Red Shoes'' will go on, with an empty spotlight in her place. Bleeding and dying, Vicki asks Julian to remove the red shoes.