Screen Picks

The Red Shoes (Fri., Sept. 17, 8 p.m., $6, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-895-6542) I-House's contribution to "The Color Project," the Klein Gallery's interdisciplinary tribute to all things chromatic, gets into full swing in October, but the series kicks off with this opening-night oldie from Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger. It's a safe bet that a movie with a color in its title will tend towards the impressionistic, and the 1948 Shoes is no exception. Jack Cardiff's subtle, glorious photography exploits the full range of Technicolor hues, not just its faculty for broad primary strokes, and as ballerina Moira Shearer dances, she floats through the air like a goddess descending to earth, and the noise of applause becomes the sound of pounding surf. (The Archers' The Tales of Hoffman is entirely composed of such stuff.) Shoes sometimes falls prey to the veddy English music-box quality which afflicts most of Powell and Pressburger's films to one degree or another. (Colonel Blimp gets around it by making satire the stiff upper lip.) But on the big screen, The Red Shoes is sure to transport, whisking you off to a country movies rarely visit these days.

24 Hours of Ulmer (starts Fri., Sept. 17, 6 a.m., Turner Classic Movies) Nobody did more with less than Edgar Ulmer, the Prince of Poverty Row. Best known for scraped-together thrillers like The Black Cat and Detour, both part of TCM's daylong celebration of Ulmer's 100th birthday, Ulmer was an off-kilter stylist and cracked philosopher who was born in Vienna, learned his trade with F.W. Murnau and Fritz Lang, and brought conspicuous craft to often threadbare productions in the U.S. TCM's tribute hits familiar marks in the evening hours, but the daytime is filled with not-on-video obscurities which will delight the most hardcore fan, including four of Ulmer's Yiddish-language features. If you've ever considered studying this most cultish of cult directors, Friday's the day to skip work.

Misc. Picks Women in prison, in prison: Secret Cinema screens The Big Doll House at Eastern State Penitentiary (Fri., Sept. 17, 8 p.m.). Weeklong runs of Bush's Brain and Ju-On: The Grudge (the Buffy-less Japanese version) inaugurate the post-Clausing era at the Prince. (See review on p. 47.) The Trenton Film Society fetes Marlon Brando with a little number called On the Waterfront (Fri., Sept. 17, 7:30 p.m.) I-House lights up with a free afternoon of kid-friendly Iranian animation, mostly using charming cutout techniques, and almost entirely without dialogue (Sun., Sept. 19, 1 p.m.).

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