It made Scorsese’s heart leap and is still soaring in the list of all-time movie classics: The Red Shoes at 75

As a new teen movie version of Powell and Pressburger’s 1948 film is released next month, Geoffrey Macnab looks back at the making of arguably the most influential British film of its era

Moira Shearer in ‘The Red Shoes’ (1948) – a film about a ballerina driven to suicide (Moviestore/Shutterstock)

What makes a pugnacious Italian-American director best known for gangster movies like Mean Streets and Goodfellas fall in love with an arty British ballet drama from 75 years ago? This is a question often asked about Martin Scorsese’s passion for The Red Shoes (1948), Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s Technicolor tale of a brilliant young ballerina eventually driven to suicide.

“It’s a film that I continually and obsessively am drawn to,” said Scorsese in a 2009 interview when a restored version of The Red Shoes was shown at the Cannes Film Festival.

He first saw The Red Shoes when he was nine or 10 years old and has continued to watch it again and again. In his New York apartment, he keeps posters and memorabilia from the movie. When he would get home late from a night shoot and couldn’t sleep, he’d often put it on the TV. The film is expected to feature very prominently in his long-gestating documentary about British cinema, if he ever completes it.