Slip on your dancing shoes and chase away the winter blues. This week on “Picture Perfect,” get those toes tapping with music from movies that include a prominent role for the dance.
“The Tales of Beatrix Potter” (1971) was inspired by the popular children’s stories, with anthropomorphized animals in hounds-tooth vests and that sort of thing. Conceived for film by Frederick Ashton, it features a buoyant pastiche score by John Lanchery, drawn from various sources, including works of Sir Arthur Sullivan, Michael Balfe, Leon Minkus and Jacques Offenbach.
Then relive the nightmare vision of “The Red Shoes” (1948). Written, directed and produced by the team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, this feverish dance film stars Scottish ballerina Moira Shearer. At its center is a story within the story, inspired by the Hans Christian Anderson tale about a girl whose vanity lends demonic power to her ruby footwear, with tragic consequences.
The music is by Brian Easdale, who conducted his own score. However, for the film’s ballet sequence, Easdale specifically requested the services of Sir Thomas Beecham, who leads the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra.
Screenwriter Ben Hecht worked on an astonishing number of Hollywood classics, including “Scarface,” “The Front Page,” “Nothing Sacred,” “His Girl Friday,” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Spellbound.” Alongside his dozens of screen credits are uncredited contributions for work on films like “Stagecoach,” “Gone with the Wind,” “The Shop Around the Corner,” and “The Thing from Another World.” Because of his versatility, speed, and reliability, he became known as “the Shakespeare of Hollywood.”
Twice, he was given free rein to direct his own projects. One of these was a quirky ballet-noir, called “Specter of the Rose” (1946). The plot concerns an unbalanced ballet superstar, played by Ivan Kirov – who looks all the world like Steve Martin – who is suspected of murdering his first wife, his former dance partner. If so, will history repeat itself, with his new bride? With dialogue stylized to the point of absurdity, It’s a film that has to be seen to be believed. The music is by Trenton-born “Bad Boy of Music” George Antheil.
Much more considered is Luchino Visconti’s adaptation of Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel, “The Leopard” (1963). Burt Lancaster stars as a fading aristocrat around the time of Italian unification. The film’s memorable ballroom sequence occupies the last third of its three-hour running time. Nino Rota supplied the music.
Finally, no show which purports to be about dance in the movies would be complete without music representative of Fred Astaire. Therefore, we’ll conclude with the funhouse dance sequence from “A Damsel in Distress” (1937). No Ginger Rogers in this one – rather Joan Fontaine, George Burns, and Gracie Allen. The energetic score is by George Gershwin.
Regain your tone with tunes from these movies about the dance, on “Picture Perfect,” music for the movies, this Saturday evening at 6:00 EST, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.
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