American Cinematographer - February 1998 - 105

1946 films A Matter ofLife

and Death

duction.

Heckroth

inherited

the

describes the

piece thusly: "The

(released in the U.S. as Stairway to
Heaven) and Black Narcissus.

whole show, with art director Arthur

'Ballet of The Red Shoes' is from

Lawson at his side to

Pressburger had written The Red

cal know-how.

fairy tale by Hans Andersen. It is the
story of a young girl who is devoured

Shoes in 1939 for Alexander Korda

Assigned to compose a ballet
hall quality" was Allan
Gray, another past Archers contribu¬

a

vehicle for Kordas

star

as

and future

wife, Merle Oberon. During May of
1946, The Archers bought the script
for £9,000 and Pressburger rewrote it
as a darker, heavier yarn.

During the project's planning

"of

provide techni¬

concert

tor. He was

unable

to

deliver the

sort

of music the

producers had in mind,
though, and his work was eventually
scrapped. Replacing Gray was Brian

with

an

shoes

Easdale, 38, who had scored Black

shoes

Narcissus and whose first opera was

out

Junge, the great German designer

produced when he

over

responsible for the superb decor of
most previous Archer productions.
However, Powell decided that Junge's
style was too stolid for the ballet
sequence. Without informing Junge,
he assigned the ballet sequence to

tion, Easdale conducted all of the
score save for the ballet, which he

Hein Heckroth, a German artist pre¬

viously hired by Junge to design
tumes

and title

art

cos¬

for A Matter

of

Life and Death and Black Narcissus.
Junge became privy to this
reassignment, he walked off the pro-

When

17. In addi¬

insisted should be conducted

by Sir

Thomas Beecham, who recorded

the

soundtrack with

the

Royal

core

is the

picture's

"Ballet of the Red Shoes," much of
which is

staged as a dream-fantasy in

the mind of the heroine
forms onstage.

dance in

are

not

tired. In fact, the red
tired. They dance her

are never

into the street,

they dance her

the mountains and valleys,
through fields and forests, through
night and day. Time rushes by, love
rushes by, life rushes by - but the
red shoes go on. In the end, she dies."

This ballet is, in fact,

a

bizarre

version of the real-life drama which

Philharmonic.
At the

a

pair of red shoes. She gets the shoes
and goes to the dance. For a time, all
goes well and she is very happy. At
the end of the evening she is tired
and wants to go home, but the red
a

stages at Pinewood Studios, the film's
art direction was assigned to Alfred

was

ambition to attend

a

as

she per¬

In the film, the fanat¬
ical ballet impresario Lermontov

engulfs the central figures of the sur¬
rounding story: Lermontov, who, it is
said, "makes your dreams come true,
but at a fearful price"; Victoria Page,
neophyte ballerina; and young
composer Julian Craster. Lermontov
a

American

Opposite: A
magical moment
occurs as a

swirl

of newspapers
rises to dance
with Victoria and

changes for

a

moment into

Boleslawsky.
During that
instant, her
dress takes

on

the newspaper
motif. Above:
The

tragic end¬
ing of the Red

Shoes Ballet.

Cinematographer 103
American Cinematographer - February 1998

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