The title ballet sequence took six weeks to shoot and employed over 120 paintings by Hein Heckroth. The dancing newspaper was achieved through careful cutting and use of wires.
When Ludovic Kennedy saw Moira Shearer in this film, he said that he knew instantly that she was the girl he would marry. He actively sought her out and married her two years later, in February 1950, in the Chapel Royal in London's Hampton Court Palace.
The 15-minute (approximately) "Ballet of the Red Shoes" used a corps de ballet of 53 dancers.
On her first day of shooting, Moira Shearer got badly sunburned and developed a blister on her back. Also, later in the production, she wrenched her neck quite badly when called to leap from a window and received a scratch that turned into an abscess. Shearer would often find herself being suspended in a harness for up to eight hours while being buffeted by wind machines.
This is one of director Martin Scorsese's favorite films and he owns a large collection of memorabilia related to it, including a pair of the red slippers signed by Moira Shearer, a copy of the screenplay signed by directors Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, an original set of storyboards (which were a gift from Rolling Stones drummer Charlie Watts), and several movie posters from around the world. Scorsese's collection of memorabilia can be viewed on the Criterion Collection's DVD/Blu-ray release of the movie.
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