TCM SPOTLIGHT: DANCE NUMBERS

TCM, beginning at 8 p.m. Catch a Classic! Turner Classic Movies has all the right moves again with another Monday evening salute to films with great choreography. Beginning this evening is the Best Picture Oscar-nominated British drama “The Red Shoes” (1948). Renowned Scottish ballet dancer Moira Shearer made her feature-film debut here as Victoria Page, a dancer thrilled when impresario Boris Lermontov (Anton Walbrook) offers her a spot a spot with his ballet company. She meets and quickly falls for accompanist Julian Craster (Marius Goring), but is dealt a cruel fate after she leaves him in favor of a jealous Lermontov’s promises to further her own ambition. Famed filmmaking collaborators Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger co-wrote and co-directed this lushly photographed film, whose lovely musical score by Brian Easdale won an Oscar. Australian ballet dancer Robert Helpmann costars and choreographed the film’s central, 17-minute-long ballet sequence, the famed “The Ballet of the Red Shoes.” Russian choreographer/ballet dancer Léonide Massine was also cast as a dancer and choreographed his own role within the

main ballet. Following this film, the rest of the evening is comprised of four films starring and choreographed by the legendary Gene Kelly, and in two cases co-directed and directed by him. First is the Best Picture Oscar-winning “An American in Paris” (1951), directed by Best Director Oscar nominee Vincente Minnelli. Inspired by George Gershwin’s 1928 orchestral composition, the colorful film finds an expatriate American artist played by Kelly falling in love with a beautiful Frenchwoman (Leslie Caron), with the duo memorably dancing throughout the romantic settings of the titular City of Light accompanied by a Gershwin score. Next is “Singin’ in the Rain” (1952), which Kelly co-directed and -choreographed with Stanley Donen. Co-starring Donald O’connor and Debbie Reynolds, the film features a memorable, Oscarnominated musical score to accompany its choreography, including a famed scene where Kelly does indeed sing (and dance) in the rain. The last films are “Summer Stock” (1950), also starring Judy Garland and co-choreographed by Nicholas Castle Sr. and Kelly; and “Invitation to the Dance” (1956), Kelly’s first solo directing effort, an interesting and experimental film in which there is no dialogue — the characters perform their roles entirely through dance and mime, choreographed by Kelly. One of the sequences, co-directed by animation greats William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, even finds a live-action Kelly dancing with various cartoon characters.