The Red Shoes (J. Arthur Rank; Eagle Lion) is a lingering, calf-eyed look at backstage ballet's little world of overworked egos and underdone glands. Its theme is one of fiction's most moth-eaten: one must suffer for one's Art.
As in most movies that grapple with Art, the burden of the suffering falls on the audience, which is subjected to all the knitted brows, quivering nostrils, tossed locks—and tantrumacious bad manners—that cinemaddicts have learned to recognize as signs of artistic genius. The Red Shoes is such a spotty piece of movie craftsmanship that it...
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