The plot might have been a touch old fashioned, but the glorious technicolor and Robert Helpmann's florid, dazzling choreography, made this film as exciting on both sides of the Atlantic and Shearer, complete with lucid beauty and captivating movements, a star.Īfter the film, Shearer returned to ballet, and following a brief U.S. In 1948, Powell and co-director Emeric Pressburger cast Shearer in the title role of Victoria Page, the young ballerina who sacrifices all for her career. When she was just 16 she joined the Sadler's Wells Ballet and made her big national debut at 20 as Sleeping Beauty at the Royal Opera House in London. Her father, an engineer, moved the family to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where she was pushed into dance lessons by her mother.Īfter the family returned to Scotland, she received lessons from the legendary Russian dance teacher Nikolai Legat. She was 80.īorn Moira Shearer King on Januin Dunfermline, Scotland. Sadly, that actress, Moira Shearer, died on January 31 in Oxford, England of natural causes. Her contributions to film may have been brief, but for at least one film, Michael Powell's dance opus The Red Shoes (1948), this elegant, gorgeous redhead became a film icon for her balletic performance. He had been blacklisted in Hollywood following High Noon (1952) and moved to London to continue his career there. The ballerina.moves gracefully from the role of a dewy-eyed 16-year-old, to a mincing Cockney, to a temperamental but tender Russian première danseuse and, finally, to a smart manikin."Īccording to author Rebecca Prime's Hollywood Exiles in Europe, writer-producer Carl Foreman later said that he worked on this film's screenplay without credit. In essaying the roles of the 'redheads,' Moira Shearer has developed acting talents that are both surprising and refreshing. situations and dialogue never lack for color and his lightweight dig at dalliance is a pleasure. It was well-received in the U.S., with Variety deeming it "a light and wholly enjoyable British comedy" and The New York Times describing it as "a charming lark, light as a zephyr and just as welcome." The Times review continued: "Terrence Rattigan must have drunk copiously of that mysterious nectar that inspires some playwrights to weave bright comedy out of what is often flimsy, run-of-the-mill material. The picture opened in the United Kingdom in February 1955, with an American release following five months later. Denholm Elliott plays Binfield's son in one of his early screen appearances, and also notable is Gladys Cooper, who, French said, "steals the whole thing in the last few minutes." Actors Roland Culver and Joan Benham were imported from the stage version. French later said that he thought his cast wasn't strong enough and that he would have preferred Kenneth More to play Binfield instead, More narrates the tale wryly from offscreen. He adapted the screenplay himself, and the film was the last feature to be directed by actor-turned-director Harold French. Terence Rattigan's play opened in London in 1950 and ran for over a year.
Binfield is played first by Jeremy Spenser as a 14-year-old, then later by John Justin (best known as Prince Ahmad in 1940's The Thief of Bagdad), who proceeds to age through the film. All her characters are loved by the same man, the diplomat Lord Binfield, who is married but considers the image of Shearer to be his ideal woman he pursues her in all her guises over nearly half a century. The red-haired Shearer plays four roles in the film, the third of whom is a dancer, affording her the opportunity to perform part of Tchaikovsky's "The Sleeping Beauty" ballet. Timing is everything - a few years later I could have played those parts so much better, but it was the film I most enjoyed doing." I played several parts and wished I'd had more experience before tackling it.
#TERRENCE SAINTHILL FULL#
It was a charming play by Terence Rattigan, originally called Who Is Sylvia?, and we had a marvelous cast, full of the best British character actors: Roland Culver, Harry Andrews, Denholm Elliott, and so on. "Harold French directed, delightfully and easily, but had a little difficulty with his producer, Alex Korda, who announced he would redirect a certain sequence himself. "I loved it," she later told writer Brian MacFarlane for his book An Autobiography of British Cinema. Moira Shearer is best remembered for her turn as Victoria Page in The Red Shoes (1948), but of the actress-ballerina's six feature films, her favorite was the comedy The Man Who Loved Redheads (1955).
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