October 22, 1948 –
Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger technicolor fever dream about the world of ballet, The Red Shoes, starring Moira Shearer and Anton Walbrook, opened in New York City on this date. Little girls and boys were forever ensnared in it’s magical, evil web.
The film went massively over budget and the Rank Company, which financed it and was to release it, had little faith in its commercial potential. It tried to bury the film by not giving it a premiere (backer J. Arthur Rank walked out of its first performance) and by just letting it quietly show at late screenings at a cinema in London. Rank wasn’t even prepared to strike a print for the American market. Slowly, however, audiences started to pick up on the film, and Rank realized that it might have potential to be a breakout hit after all. Indeed, when an initial print was made for the US, it played at an off-Broadway theater for an unprecedented 110 weeks. That was enough to convince Universal to take up the distribution rights for the US, which it did in 1951.
The Haus of Dcaligari 