The Masters  
The Powell &Pressburger Images

Dedicated to the work of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger and all the other people, both actors and technicians who helped them make those wonderful films.

A lot of the images have come from other web sites. The name of the web site is given where known. If I have unintentionally included an image or document that is copyrighted or that I shouldn't have done then please email me and I'll remove it.

I make no money from this site, it's purely for the love of the films.

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Powell & Pressburger Images - The Red Shoes (1948) / The Monk Gibbon Book


These images are scanned in from the Monk Gibbon book.
They're not great scans, you'll have to find a copy of the book to see the originals :)

The Red Shoes Ballet - A Critical Study
[Saturn Press, 1948]


Massine as the shoemaker

In rehearsal

Massine and Moira Shearer at the barre

... but only a few can mime with genius

... Lermontov forsees a future ballerina

Original oil-painted design by Hein Heckroth

Heckroth's sense of the grotesque would have pleased Anderson

The apotheosis of human puppetry

The Dead City

Light-hearted, headstrong youth embarked on it's self-chosen course

The Great Ballroom
A scene suggesting Degas and the romantic ballet

Moira Shearer alone in the village square

Robert Helpmann and Moira Shearer

The Fun Fair
Highly stylised choreography, modernistic in conception

Massine proves once more that a great dancer can seem lighter than air

Heckroth design
The Great Wave

Despite her lover's pleading the girl moves towards the Shoemaker's shop

The Lover contemplates the shop window with distrust

The shoemaker tempts her with the shoes

She is launched upon her mad career of dancing

Her partners sink exhausted around her

When they have all collapsed she dances down a long corridor

She would like to return home but is snatched mysteriously back on the very threshold

She dances with a newspaper-fame, and sees it suddenly transformed into her lover

The monsters of the subconscious assail her

Pressing ever more closely in upon her

From the Dead City she passes on to fresh images of horror

Back in the villages square she is spurned from the church door by all except the priest

She threatens the cobbler with his own knife

The priest saves her from his clutches, lifts her up

Unfastens the shoes from her feet, and she dies

Emeric Pressburger and Michael Powell at Monte Carlo

Design for the Red Shoes ballet by Hein Heckroth

Hein Heckroth in his studio

Powell explains a point to Mr. Rank who sponsored the film

Sir Thomas Beecham and Brian Easdale expound the score

Robert Helpmann as The Lover

Helpmann, Massine and Moira Shearer at rehearsal in Lermontov's company

Moira Shearer and Robert Helpmann in the Red Shoes Ballet

Moira Shearer
a moment of leisure for la ballerina

The Shoemaker and his victim
a study in movement

On the Set
Powell watches Massine, Helpmann and Shearer rehearse an incident

The Great Camera
Helpmann, Shearer and Powell

Jack Cardiff
The man who swung the camera

Original design
The village square

Original design
The dance of exhaustion begins

Original design
Girl and partner

Original design
The fun fair

Original design
The great ballroom


Other P&P images