Trivia / The Red Shoes (1948)

• Cast the Expert: The directors decided early on that they had to use dancers who could act rather than actors who could dance. To create a realistic feeling of a ballet company at work, and to be able to include a fifteen-minute ballet as the high point of the film, they created their own ballet company using many dancers from the Sadler's Wells Ballet (what would later become The Royal Ballet).
• Darkhorse Casting: This was Moira Shearer's first film. At the time, she was beginning to ascend in her career with the Sadler's Wells Dance Company, dancing under Ninette de Valois.
• Dawson Casting: Marius Goring was in his mid-thirties and slightly too old for the role of Julian.
• Follow the Leader: The dance sequence and use of ballet in this film inspired and influenced MGM musicals, especially Gene Kelly whose finale of An American in Paris was a homage to this film.
• Hypothetical Casting:
  • J. Arthur Rank, keen to break through the North American market, wanted a big-name Hollywood star to play Vicky Page, like Lauren Bacall or Maureen O'Hara. Powell and Pressburger refused the idea.
  • Angela Lansbury was offered the chance to star but MGM refused to loan her to Rank.
• Reality Subtext:
  • The story of Boris Lermontov's controlling behaviour with his dancers is patterned on Sergei Diaghilev and his collaboration with Nijinsky.
  • Also, the scene at the end with the ballet carrying on with Victoria being replaced with a spotlight was a very real tradition in the ballet world and did happen when Anna Pavlova died before performing in 1931.
• Referenced by...:
  • Summer Stock featured a scene where Gene Kelly did a newspaper dance directly inspired by this film.
  • A scene in The Avengers (2012) had Black Widow in the same costume as Victoria Page. The Russian general also says "We don't need Lermontov to deliver the tanks". Lermontov is the name of a character in the film.
  • In Cyborg 009 - 003 recalls a movie that inspired her to take up ballet - including a replica of the scene showing Victoria throwing herself in front of a train, even down to her preference for her dancing shoes being red.
  • In A Chorus Line, several of the auditionees mention how much of an effect The Red Shoes had on their decisions to become dancers. Val, in her monologue leading up to "Dance: Ten, Looks: Three", subverts this: "Oh yeah, let's get one thing straight. See, I never heard about The Red Shoes, I never SAW The Red Shoes, I don't give a fuck about The Red Shoes!"
• What Might Have Been:
  • In 1937, Alexander Korda found inspiration to write a ballet-themed film as a vehicle for Merle Oberon, his future wife. Korda, along with filmmaker Michael Powell, fashioned a film based on Oberon's looks, but, because she was not a skilled dancer, Korda knew he would need to use a double for any dance sequences. Korda eventually abandoned the project, instead shifting his focus to The Thief of Bagdad.
  • In 1946, Powell and his filmmaking partner Emeric Pressburger bought the rights to the screenplay Powell had co-written with Korda for £9,000. According to Powell, the original screenplay contained significantly more dialogue and less story.
  • Moira Shearer originally turned down the role of Vicky. American ballerinas Nana Gollner and Edwina Seaver tested for the part, but their acting abilities proved unsatisfactory to Powell and Pressburger. Non-dancers Hazel Court and Ann Todd were briefly considered before Shearer changed her mind and decided to accept the role.
• Write Who You Know: Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger claimed to have based Boris Lermontov on their first mentor Alexander Korda.

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