Classics Revised is a series where we pair a classic that you should see before you die with a lesser-known film that must be seen to be believed. Our goal is to recommend thoughtful double features, encourage discussion about what makes a film classic, and shed light on film history's hidden gems.
I've never been able to resist a dance film — the spectacle, the music, the glittering, vibrant melodrama. That's why I'm especially excited to recommend this inaugural edition of our Classics Revised double feature: The Red Shoes (1947) and Dance, Girl, Dance (1940). Both of these films are backstage dramas about young women trying to break into the world of ballet. They also feature long, drawn-out dance sequences and use point-of-view imagery to keep us close to their female protagonists. But their most exciting similarity? They're both poignant explorations of the way femininity and female artistry clash with the rules of society.
First, the classic:
There's a lot to love about The Red Shoes. It's shot in stunning, hyper-saturated three-strip technicolor, the dance scenes are dizzying and expressionistic, and the performances are brilliant and campy as hell. The movie follows aspiring ballerina Vicky Page (Moira Shearer), whose boss, Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook), makes her choose between her job and her romance with the ballet's composer, Julian Craster (Maruiys Goring).
The movie soars when it sticks close to Victoria's point of view. It is thrilling to see a dance movie that puts us directly in the dancer's head, positioning the dancer both as a visual spectacle and a dimensional character that can motivate camera movement. And Victoria, up until the very end, is granted depth and dimension. She gets to be passionate and witty and romantic about her art in a way that made me swoon. In one scene, Lermontov asks her why she wants to dance, and Victoria responds, "Why do you want to live?" It's a memorable moment and a wonderful depiction of what it means to be a true artist.
In reading about The Red Shoes, you'll find a lot of big talk about the romance and valor of suffering for your art; even Powell himself attributed the film's success to the idea that it "told us to go die for art" rather than for freedom or country. But if you ask me [spoiler alert], Victoria dies for a couple of selfish, possessive men. Although all three main characters are technically collaborators, Julian and Lermontov act more like puppet masters, fighting over who gets to pull on Victoria's strings. This is a fascinatingly dark portrayal of collaboration, considering it was made by two of film history's most notable collaborators, Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger.
There's an argument that it's all one big metaphor, dramatizing the conflict between an artist's personal life and their art through Victoria's boss and the man she loves… That's a pretty generous reading considering all three characters are artists, but only the woman is forced to make this choice. The film goes out of its way to demonstrate that this dichotomy between love and art only applies to female artists: There is even a scene where Victoria is packing away her ballet shoes, resigned to a life without dance so she can be with the man she loves, while that very man sits at his piano, brimming with inspiration, composing his music. In the end, Victoria's passions clash with society in a way that Julian's don't. He lives to continue creating, while her dying wish is to have her red ballet shoes taken off for good.
Enter Dance, Girl, Dance:
Readers, I don't exaggerate when I say I could write hundreds of pages waxing poetic about Dance, Girl, Dance. The film follows Judy (Maureen O'Hara), an aspiring ballerina who gets stuck playing the stooge in her friend Bubble's (played by a shockingly sexy Lucille Ball) burlesque show. Let me tell you, from an entertainment standpoint — this film holds up. The jokes? They land. The dance and stage sequences? Incredibly absorbing, largely thanks to Lucille Ball's absolutely magnetic performance. In fact, all of the performances in Dance, Girl, Dance stand out compared to the film's contemporaries. Although there are some melodramatic elements in the plot, something about these characters feels incredibly real. The actors are not hamming it up the way you'll often find in musicals from the 40s. Instead, there's something surprisingly subtle, especially about Maureen O'Hara, as she carefully observes her audience and fellow performers. It's one of the few times I've seen a film this old and felt reminded that the actors were actually real people.
While watching Dance, Girl, Dance for the first time, I had one big question: why haven't I ever heard of this movie?! Beyond its entertainment value and incredible performances, the film's gender politics are lightyears ahead of its time. The film discusses the nuance of femininity and female performance in several ways. Most obviously, we see this in the way the film portrays the complicated power dynamics of men looking at women — and I'd like to point out that this movie came out decades before the term male gaze was coined. When Judy performs in the context of burlesque, she withers. Through heightened point of view shots, we see how uncomfortable a leering male audience makes her. On the other hand, when Bubble performs her act, she blossoms. She loves being the center of attention and is clearly in total control when she's on stage. And, even more exciting, their relationships to a male audience exists on stage and off. While Bubbles spends the movie chasing male attention and dreaming of marrying rich, Judy literally hides from a ballet director who's trying to recruit her because she's convinced he's hitting on her and possibly stalking her. Can you imagine — a film that calls out the power dynamics between female performers and male audiences while also portraying the effects of that dynamic in women's everyday lives? All without judging either character because, essentially, you gotta do what you gotta do? And it all happened in the year of our lord 1940?!
Dance, Girls, Dance also strikes a modern chord in its rendering of female performers because of the amount of agency they're granted. While Victoria suffers at the hands of her manipulating collaborators, Bubbles and Judy spend the runtime of Dance, Girls, Dance making on-screen choices about their careers and personal lives. There are romantic subplots, but make no mistake, the characters are motivated by financial and artistic success. The movie doesn't end with a big romantic kiss or wedding [or suicide]; it ends when the characters finally achieve the lives and careers they were working towards. This portrayal of female artistry is incredibly refreshing, especially after watching The Red Shoes.
It’s no coincidence that this film has such a better handle on the subject. Dance, Girl, Dance was directed by Dorothy Arzner: the first woman in the Director’s Guild of America, the only woman to direct movies within the studio system of the 40s and 50s, and, as far as I can tell, the first out lesbian director. Although this is probably the first Arzner film you'll see, her influence on the films you know and love is immeasurable. She invented the boom microphone and launched the careers of half a dozen A-list actors of her time, including Katherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, and, of course, Lucille Ball. After accomplishing all that, she spent her retirement teaching film at UCLA, where one of her students was a young man you may have heard of, Frances Ford Coppola. Readers, I am obsessed with this woman. It is the tragedy of my life that I learned about her when I happened upon Dance, Girls, Dance on the Criterion Channel and not in the film school that I paid thousands of dollars to attend. I hope that I've paid a small tribute to her memory by sharing this double feature. I encourage you to watch her other work and read up on her biography. She truly was a remarkable woman.
The Red Shoes (1948, written and directed by Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger) is currently streaming on HBO Max, The Criterion Channel, and Pluto TV and is available to rent on Youtube, Google Play, and Apple TV.
Dance, Girl, Dance (1940, directed by Dorothy Arzner, written by Frank Davis and Tess Slesinger) is available to rent on Youtube, Google Play, Vudu, and Apple TV.
These movies are super old, so here are some content warnings:
The Red Shoes: graphic depiction of suicide, emotional abuse
Dance, Girl, Dance: brief depiction of blackface in a ballet dance