The Red Shoes Michael L. Powell, Emeric Pressburger

Box office

The Red Shoes had its premiere in London on 22 July 1948, and its general release in the United Kingdom was on 6 September 1948. Upon its initial release in the United Kingdom the film was a low-earning picture, as the Rank Organisation could not afford to spend much on promotion due to severe financial problems exacerbated by the expense of Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Also, according to Powell, the Rank Organisation did not understand the artistic merits of the film, and this strain in the relationship between The Archers and Rank led to the end of the partnership between them, with The Archers moving to work for Alexander Korda.[6]

Despite a lack of advertising, the film went on to become the sixth most popular film at the British box office in 1948.[45][46] According to Kinematograph Weekly the 'biggest winner' at the box office in 1948 Britain was The Best Years of Our Lives with Spring in Park Lane being the best British film and "runners up" being It Always Rains on Sunday, My Brother Jonathan, Road to Rio, Miranda, An Ideal Husband, The Naked City, The Red Shoes, Green Dolphin Street, Forever Amber, Life with Father, The Weaker Sex, Oliver Twist, The Fallen Idol and The Winslow Boy.[47]

The film premiered in the United States at New York City's Bijou Theatre on 21 October 1948,[48] distributed by Eagle-Lion Films.[49] By the end of the year, it had earned $2.2 million (equivalent to $22.3 million in 2023)[50] in US rentals.[51] It ended its run at this cinema on 13 November 1950, playing for a total of 107 weeks. The success of this run convinced Universal Pictures that The Red Shoes was a worthwhile film and they took over the US distribution in 1951. The Red Shoes went on to become one of the highest-earning British films of all time, with a record-breaking gross of over $5 million.[9][52][3]

According to one account, producer's receipts were £179,900 in the UK and £1,111,400 overseas.[2] It made a reported profit of £785,700.[1]

Critical response

Film scholar Mark Connelly notes that interpreting the contemporaneous critical response to The Red Shoes is a "complicated task, as there are no simple divisions between those who liked the film and those who did not."[53] Connelly concludes that the reaction was notably "complex and mixed."[53] Adrienne McLean similarly states that the film received "only mixed" reviews from both cinema and ballet critics.[54] Upon its release in the United Kingdom, the film received some criticism from the national press, particularly aimed at Powell and Pressburger for the perception that the feature was "undisciplined and downright un-British."[55]

While the film had its detractors in Britain, it was lauded by some national critics, such as Dilys Powell, who deemed it an "extreme pleasure" and "brilliantly experimental."[56] Writing for The Monthly Film Bulletin, Marion Eames praised the performances of Shearer and Goring, as well as the score.[53] The Daily Film Renter published a divisive review, noting that Powell and Pressburger "have fumbled over a fine idea, and their opulent work trembles between the heights and the depths."[53] Despite this, it was voted the third-best film of the year in a readers' poll by the Daily Mail, behind Spring in Park Lane and Oliver Twist.[57]

Initial reception proved more favourable in the United States, where the film went on to garner mainstream attention after it screened in the US arthouse circuit.[55]

A main point of contention amongst both British and American critics was a perceived lack of realism concerning the ballet sequences.[58] The focus of this criticism was the film's central 17-minute ballet performance of The Ballet of the Red Shoes: Many dance critics felt the sequence's impressionistic touches—which include abstract hallucinations and visual manifestations of Vicky's mental state—detracted from the physical aspects of the ballet.[59] British ballet critic Kathrine Sorley Walker also dismissed the sequence, commenting that it marked "a departure from the illusion of stage ballet to the limitless and lush spaces reflecting the ballerina's thought."[56] Eames made similar criticism, condemning the subjective elements of the sequence as "corrupting the integrity of the ballet," as well as the choreography.[60] Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times, however, praised the presentation of ballet in the film, deeming it "the most ambitious—and probably the most dazzlingly successful—use of traditional-type ballet in any motion picture to date."[61]

Accolades

Home media and restoration

The American home media company The Criterion Collection released The Red Shoes on laserdisc in 1994, and on DVD in 1999.[64]

Efforts to restore The Red Shoes began in the early 2000s.[65] With fundraising spearheaded by Martin Scorsese and his longtime editor (and Powell's widow), Thelma Schoonmaker, Robert Gitt and Barbara Whitehead formally began the restoration in the fall of 2006 at the UCLA Film and Television Archive, along with the help of the United States Film Foundation.[65] Gitt, the chief preservation officer of the UCLA Archive, supervised the restoration, assisting Whitehead in reviewing each individual frame of the film—192,960 in the print, 578,880 in the tripartite negative.[65] The original negatives had suffered extensive harm, including shrinkage and mould damage.[65] Because the damage to the negatives was so significant, digital restoration was the only viable method of rehabilitating the film.[66] The 4K digital restoration was completed with the help of the Prasad Corporation and Warner Bros. Motion Picture Imaging to remove dirt, scratches, and other flaws.[66] Digital methods were also used to remove pops, crackles and background hiss from the film's original optical soundtrack.[66]

The newly restored version of The Red Shoes had its world premiere at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival.[65] Several months later, in October 2009, ITV Films released the restored version on Blu-ray in the United Kingdom.[67] On 20 July 2010, the Criterion Collection again reissued the film in its restored state on DVD and Blu-ray.[64] Reviewing the Criterion Blu-ray, which includes an illustrative demonstration of the film's restoration, Stuart Galbraith of DVD Talk referred to the "before and after" comparisons as "shocking and heartening at once."[64]

On 14 December 2021, Criterion released the 2009 restoration of The Red Shoes in 4K, as part of their first six-film slate of 4K UHD disc releases.[68]