The Red Shoes: behind the scenes of the classic Powell and Pressburger film in pictures | Film

Posted by Martina Birk on Tuesday, January 23, 2024

The Red Shoes: behind the scenes of the classic Powell and Pressburger film – in pictures

To tie in with its Powell and Pressburger season, the BFI have mounted an exhibition focusing on the celebrated 1948 ballet movie, drawing on a wealth of material preserved by the BFI National Archive, including around 100 unseen costume and production designs by Hein Heckroth and Ivor Beddoes

• The Red Shoes: Beyond the Mirror runs until 7 January at the BFI Southbank, London

Guardian film

Main image: Dance she must … production design for The Red Shoes by Hein Heckroth. Photograph: Estate of Hein Heckroth/ ITV/ BFI National Archive

Mon 13 Nov 2023 10.07 EST Last modified on Wed 15 Nov 2023 09.25 EST

  • The Red Shoes’ production designer Hein Heckroth won an Academy Award for art direction, along with the film’s art director Arthur Lawson, and created dozens of concept illustrations. This painting shows a surreal sequence in the Red Shoes ballet that is the centrepiece of the film; the film’s music, by composer Brian Easdale, won another a second Oscar for best score

  • Several sequences were shot in Monte Carlo, where Moira Shearer’s character Victoria Page dances at the Opera House. Here Shearer takes a break on the steps outside

  • A painted design by Heckroth for an unrealised scene with Victoria (Shearer) and Lermontov (Anton Walbrook)

  • An extraordinary costume design by Heckroth, for the fairground scene in the Red Shoes ballet

  • Emeric Pressburger, left, and Michael Powell, on set in Monte Carlo

  • Ivor Beddoes was uncredited for The Red Shoes but acted as a design storyboard collaborator with Heckroth. Here is a storyboard painting by Beddoes, showing the Shoemaker in the ballet sequence

  • Another painting by Beddoes, a draft production design for a figure in the ballroom from the Red Shoes ballet

  • The Archers film unit preparing for a nighttime location shoot on Cap Martin, just outside Monte Carlo

  • One-sheet Red Shoes film poster

  • Shearer and Marius Goring relaxing between takes in Monte Carlo

  • Costume design by Beddoes for the Red Shoes ballet

  • An original pair of Shearer’s red shoes, now owned by The Film and TV Charity

  • Shearer chatting with sailors, who were in Monte Carlo for the silver jubilee of Louis II, Prince of Monaco

  • Another production design concept painting by Heckroth for the Red Shoes ballet

  • An draft version of the title design by Beddoes
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