Here’s Maureen Dowd on the stunning film version of Andersen’s “The Red Shoes.” Pressburger and Powell’s brilliant film brings Andersen’s story into the twentieth century, with a doomed heroine torn between love and ballet. Here’s Dowd on the Andersen story:

“The Red Shoes” is based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name about a little girl who becomes vain about her red shoes and gets confused about her priorities. As in the movie, the shoes force the girl to dance day and night, and then she dies. But the fable has an even grimmer coda: The girl asks an executioner to cut off her feet.

Interesting that Dowd left out an important element in Andersen’s tale: the girl’s conversion experience at the end–her recognition that piety and prayer are superior to beauty and mobility.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/08/opinion/08dowd.html