Stunning Technicolor camera-work and a 17-minute fantasy ballet sequence are just two of the highlights of this most famous of all British films, directed by Michael Powell from a script by partner Emeric Pressburger, about two rising stars in a post-war ballet troupe led by a tyrannical, brilliant impresario. Anton Walbrook is chillingly effective as Boris Lermontov, director of the Ballet Lermontov, who takes young dancer Moira Shearer and composer Marius Goring under his wing for an adaptation of “The Red Shoes”, which makes them all instant stars, but when the two youngsters fall in love, the mad and jealous dictator nulls the success by destroying the team. Pressburger’s script suggests the sacrifices an artist has to make to create one-of-a-kind performances, and though the film ends in tragedy for all, it’s ultimately Lermontov who pays the most for his psychotic obsession with perfection, reduced to a babbling ball of rage and tears that Walbrook milks for tremendous dramatic effect. Following the entirely studio built “Black Narcissus”, Powell’s production, the last of a fruitful contract with the Rank Organization, globe-trots around Europe, from London to Monte Carlo to Paris, with an eye for color composition and performance perfectionism rarely matched in film history.