Red shoes and fleur bleue

Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes.  Love her make-up.

I noticed today that the classic 1948 Powell & Pressburger film The Red Shoes is being shown on BBC2 on Christmas morning. I have such a soft spot for The Red Shoes and I can't really work out why, but I've been trying to...  I guess there's just something particularly evocative about British 1940s films in general which awards them a special place in my heart, and even the most affected delivery of unrealistic dialogue and overstated emotional signposting are all part of their charm.

Perhaps they tap into something from childhood? I have an early memory of watching both The Red Shoes and Brief Encounter with my mum (who had named me after a leading English actress from that era) and probably just about anything with John Mills or James Mason in too, and perhaps I associate the whole feel of the slow pace of storytelling, dramatic lighting and orchestral soundtracks with the cosy naivete of my life back then. I suppose 1940s films were amongst the very first I would have seen in the late '60s and early '70s, movies that were only twenty to thirty years old at the time, and which may have been orginally watched by my parents at the cinema when they were in their teens. British pictures made during and just after wartime seemed to have an artistic defiance in them too, and I'm sure there are plenty of essays on the subject explaining the deeper reasons and motivations behind all that in the political context of the era, but I'll leave that to the academics. All I know is that there is something subtle and special about them which I love and whereas I cannot stomach mawkishness and melodrama in so many other areas of life, I have all the time in the world for it in a 1940s film.

Rather weirdly, I also have time for it in the form of a French Christmas song from 1946 which goes completely against the grain of everything I normally like, unless it's just that whole 1940s thing kicking in again. 'Fleur Bleue' they call this kind of thing in France, apparently, denoting its saccharine sentimentality. I heard this song for the first time the other day in my French class where we had the pleasure of translating its sweet lyrics* and were lulled, like small children, by Tino Rossi's mellifluous voice.  Seeing as it's that time of year and you are no doubt sick of all the usual ubiquitous festive songs, here it is.  I like the odd little film that goes with it too.

Tino Rossi sings Petit Papa Noel, 1946

For complete soppiness and a ridiculous retro indulgence, I may have to listen to this and then watch The Red Shoes on Wednesday morning. That's about as Christmassy and sentimental as it gets round here.

Tino Rossi.... very suave

*
It's a beautiful Christmas night
Snow spreads its white coat
And eyes lift toward the sky
On their knees, small children
Before closing their eyelids
Say one last prayer

Little Father Christmas
When you come down from the sky
With toys by the thousands
Don't forget my little shoe

But before leaving
You must cover yourself well
Outside you'll be so cold
It's a little bit because of me

I can't wait for the break of day
To see if you have brought me
All the lovely toys that I see in dreams
And that I ordered from you

Little Father Christmas
When you come down from the sky
With toys by the thousands
Don't forget my little shoe

The sandman has been
The children are going to sleep
And you can start,
With your sack over your back,
To the sound of the church bells,
Your distribution of surprises

If you have to stop
On all the roofs in the world
And do all that before tomorrow morning -
Get yourself down the chimneys fast

And when you're on your beautiful cloud
Come to our house first
I haven't always been very well behaved
But I ask for your forgiveness

Little Father Christmas
When you come down from the sky
With toys by the thousands
Don't forget my little shoe
Little Father Christmas

Dead of night

So, it’s the 31st October and the temporary signs are up in the local Co-op: ‘No eggs / flour sold to anyone under 16’ while at the same time the shelves are crammed full of tacky over-priced crap which is only valid for use one night a year.  What’s that all about?  Back in my day (oh, here we go…) we just draped old sheets with cut-out eyeholes over ourselves then ate baked potatoes before a game of Murder In The Dark (which I never really understood how to play, to be honest).  We didn’t dare venture outside (for fear of too many real ghosts).  

Today I will venture outside, in fact I am daring to venture down to London, to meet a stranger in a strange place (all in the name of work, you understand) just as dusk falls on the city and its streets no doubt fill with people rushing home from their jobs, perhaps to change into Hallowe’en costumes bought from Tesco.  I just hope I don’t encounter too many of them on the train home.  There’s something special about central London after dark for me, though: ghosts of a different kind.  I still find the city exciting, it's full of nuanced memories and part of me will wish I could extend my visit to have a few drinks and go to see a band maybe, before flopping down on an unfamiliar bed in a high-up hotel room, a parallel world away from my quiet rural existence - but I can't!

Anyway, as a mere nod to the date and hopefully as an antedote to all the crass commercialism surrounding it, here’s a little snippet from one of my favourite old films, Dead Of Night (1945).  If you've never seen it, it's a classy portmanteau style horror comprising five disparate stories, all linked through being experiences or tales told at a gathering by each guest in turn.   And there's a twist ending, of course.  It’s exquisitely English, exquisitely 1940s and exquisitely chilling in the most perfect, understated way. 

Don't be a dummy

Forties ephemera and a missing mojo

As people who know me are no doubt bored of hearing recently, I’ve mislaid my mojo (my creative one! It inspires and helps me draw…).  I last saw it when I finished the book I was working on, but now that job is complete and it’s nowhere to be found.  At others’ suggestions I’ve tried looking down the back of the sofa (where I discovered 33 pence, a furry peanut and one of those long bits out of a packet of Bombay Mix), and almost accused a friend of slipping it into their pocket when I wasn’t looking.  However, I’ve been here before, and I know it’ll turn up again some time, probably when I least expect it.  Until then I just have to find some substitutes.  These include, but are not limited to: music, wine, savoury snacks and one particular ‘how to draw’ book.

I love this little book.  It belonged to my mum when she was a teenager; this edition was published in 1944 when she was fifteen. 

The beauty of it, for me, is that essentially nothing has changed – all the ‘how to draw’ principles are completely unaltered by the passing decades.  But the fashions are so of the time; the men are moustachioed and suave, the women look pristine, the families seem wholesome.  Knowing it was first published in wartime and, who knows, perhaps my teenage mum even took it down into the air–raid shelter with her, imbues it with an even greater historical - and personal - significance.  And it’s still the best ‘how to draw’ book I’ve ever seen.  Maybe my mojo will turn up somewhere amongst its warmly yellowed pages some day soon. 

Until then, this book, some music and a glass of red will have to do. I really wish I hadn’t eaten that bit of Bombay Mix just now, though.

All images from 'How To Draw Portraits' by Charles Wood
first printed in June 1943