Classic Movies About Ballet

Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes.

The challenge of integrating a dynamic theatrical art form into the confines of cinema has proven to be a difficult task. Consequently, it has been undertaken almost exclusively by filmmakers/ballet lovers, whose artistic successes have been mixed equally with unmitigated failures.

British filmmakers Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger produced two outstanding ballet films, with Powell also contributing a third, less memorable solo effort. The first Powell-Pressburger ballet film was 1948’s The Red Shoes, which starred real-life ballerina Moira Shearer as a young dancer driven to her death by her inability to choose between ballet and a “normal” life. The highlight of this dazzling, colorful film is a 14-minute ballet of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairy tale “The Red Shoes,” brilliantly danced and photographed against stylized sets. The elaborate sets returned in 1951’s Tales of Hoffman, a fusion of drama, singing, and ballet based on Offenbach’s opera and featuring ballerina Shearer again. Powell turned to ballet once more, sans Pressburger, in 1959’s all-but-forgotten Honeymoon, which featured excerpts from the Spanish ballets “Los Amantes de Teruel” and “El Amor Brujo.”

Leslie Caron & Gene Kelly in
An American in Paris.

The most interesting pre-Red Shoes ballet picture was The Specter of the Rose (1946), an offbeat drama about a young dancer who is slowly losing his mind. It featured a rare screen appearance by drama teacher Michael Chekhov and the potent presence of Dame Judith Anderson. Gene Kelly, after choreographing a modern ballet for a set-piece in An American in Paris (1951), incorporated ballet into his all-dance 1957 picture Invitation to the Dance. Shot in 1952, this three-part anthology boasted energetic dancing and clever direction (including a combination of live action and cartoon), but it crashed at the boxoffice and almost ended Kelly’s career. In contrast, Herbert Ross’s The Turning Point (1977) was a solid popular and critical favorite. Shirley MacLaine and Anne Bancroft had the starring roles as a pair of former ballerinas, but Mikhail Baryshnikov stole the film every time he took to the dance floor.

Ballets filmed in their entirety have been rare, but have nevertheless been captured in Peter Rabbit and the Tales of Beatrix Potter (1971), Nutcracker (1982), and Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (1986).

Margaret O'Brien in
The Unfinished Dance.

There have been numerous films, not expressly about ballet, which have featured ballerinas as principal characters. The role call of actresses who have played ballerinas is a varied one: Greta Garbo (Grand Hotel); Maureen O’Hara (Dance, Girl, Dance); Vivien Leigh (Waterloo Bridge); Loretta Young (The Men in Her Life); Margaret O’Brien (The Unfinished Dance); Janet Leigh (The Red Danube); Gene Tierney (Never Let Me Go); and Leslie Caron (Gaby).  (I think it's too early include the stars of The Black Swan....it's not a classic yet).

Ballet segments have highlighted many mainstream musicals, though the sequences in An American in Paris, Oklahoma!, and On Your Toes stand out. Films about ballet, or featuring notable scenes, include:

Grand Hotel (1932)
On Your Toes (1939)
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940)
Waterloo Bridge (1940)
The Men in Her Life (1941)
The Dancing Masters (1943)
Specter of the Rose (1946)
Carnival (1946)
The Unfinished Dance (1947)
The Imperfect Lady (1947)
The Red Shoes (1948)
The Red Danube (1949)
Illicit Interlude (aka Summer Play; Summer Interlude) (1950)
An American in Paris (1951)
Tales of Hoffman (1951)
Limelight (1952)
Never Let Me Go (1953)
Dance Little Lady (1955)
Oklahoma! (1955)
Gaby (1956)
Meet Me in Las Vegas (aka Viva Las Vegas) (1956)
Invitation to the Dance (1957)
Angel in a Taxi (1959)
Honeymoon (1959)
Vampire and the Ballerina (1962)
Peter Rabbit and the Tales of Beatrix Potter (aka The Tales of Beatrix Potter) (1971)
The Turning Point (1977)
Slow Dancing in the Big City (1978)
The Cowboy and the Ballerina (1984 TVM)
Nutcracker (1982)
Nutcracker: The Motion Picture (1986)
Dancers (1987)
Dancing for Mr. B: Six Balanchine Ballerinas (1989)

On Your Toes

I don’t like baseball, but I love movies about baseball. You see all the good parts without the long, boring stretches. The same may be true for many people regarding ballet. Even if you would not spend an evening at the ballet, there are three movies about ballet that I believe are movie-making at its best.

The Red Shoes (1948) is probably the most famous of ballet-themed movies. Starring prima ballerina Moira Shearer, it is a story of conflict, love and tragedy. The Hans Christian Anderson tale about a girl who covets a pair of red shoes, only to find that they will never stop dancing, is mirrored in the story of ballerina Vicky Page (Shearer). Her love of dance and fascination with Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), the ballet impresario who is a thinly disguised version of real-life ballet producer Diaghilev, collides with her wish for normal love and life with composer Julian Craster (Marius Goring). This conflict is portrayed on a melodramatic and epic scale.

This film is rich in color, incredible music by Brian Easdale, and the genius of writer-producer-directors Powell and Pressburger (also famous for their film Black Narcissus). The Ballet of the Red Shoes, starring and choreographed by ballet master Robert Helpmann is a marvel of impressionistic artistry. The great Leonide Massine created the role of the demonic shoemaker. Both give performances that rival the sinister Walbrook, the emotive Goring and the ethereal Shearer.

In 1977, director Herbert Ross filmed The Turning Point, starring Anne Bancroft, Shirley Maclaine, the great Mikhail Baryshnikov and young ballerina Leslie Browne. Alternating between the often idealized world of ballet and the everyday world of marriage and family, the film revolves around the relationship between aging prima ballerina Emma (Bancroft) and former ballerina turned wife and mother Deedee (Maclaine). The complex relationship between the two women see-saws from love to anger, from jealousy to need. Their turmoil comes to a head in a fight you will not soon forget. Meanwhile, Baryshnikov and Browne strike up their own star-crossed love affair. Basically a study of people and relationships, the film is filled with incredible dancing to some of ballet’s most famous and beautiful scores. In all respects, The Turning Point is a tour de force.

Herbert Ross turned to ballet again with 1980’s Nijinsky. George de la Pena plays and dances the doomed Vaslav Nijinsky, premiere dancer of the Ballet Russe in the early 20th Century. Alan Bates is wonderfully effete as Diaghilev, impresario of the Ballet Russe and Nijinsky’s lover. Leslie Browne appears again as a naïve lovestruck girl who eventually marries Nijinsky. This marriage causes an irreparable rift between Diaghilev and Nijinsky, ending Nijinsky’s career with the Ballet Russe. De la Pena dances three of Nijinsky’s most famous performances, Spectre de la Rose, Scheherazade and Afternoon of a Faun, all presented with splendid artistry and authenticity. It is with Afternoon of a Faun that Nijinsky performs an indecent act on stage, and his eventual descent into madness begins. Although not an actor per se, de la Pena does an admirable job bringing to disturbing life the hysterical nature of Nijinsky, as well as his downward spiral at a very young age into the semi-comatose state in which he spent the remainder of his life.

So, if you don’t like baseball but enjoy baseball movies, take a chance on these three wonderful films. You will never forget them.