Black Tights, a Roland Petit Ballet Film

[Alan Brody]

Recorded this from TCM not long ago. It's a three-part dance film from the late 50's, with each of the segments choreographed by Welles's collaborator on The Lady in the Ice, Roland Petit. I thought it was interesting, especially the first segment, The Diamond Crusher, where a female gangster falls in love with a man played by Dirk Sanders, who looked alot like Anthony Perkins. Music is by Jean-Michel Damase, who did the music for Lady in the Ice. Interesting to see Welles's two main collaborators working together on another project. Gives you a fairly good idea of what Lady in the Ice must have been like. Too bad they didn't film Lady as well. Good film, though. Second segment has Petit himself dancing the part of Cyrano De Bergerac, another part Welles woud have played if he had had the chance. Recommended.

[ToddBaesen]

Here is TIME Magazine in 1953, on Welles's Ballet, which it certainly seems like he directed, THE LADY IN THE ICE:


From London came more ballet news last week: the première of a new number, The Lady in the Ice, with scenario and sets by Orson Welles. Welles, challenged to try a ballet at a chance meeting with Choreographer Roland Petit in Paris, tossed off a scenario idea on the spot: a young girl is frozen in a block of ice; thawed out by a young man's ardent dancing, she comes to life, but as her enthusiasm waxes, his wears out, and at the end it is he who is frozen solid. Welles helped with the staging, came through with a method of displaying Heroine Colette Marchand as if she were suspended in ice. Near the finish, he was dithering nervously in the wings when a drapery covering the frozen hero began to tear as it was raised. Stagehands began to panic, but Welles rose to the occasion: "Continuez! Continuez!" he yelled. "Let it tear! C'est magnifique!" The audience gave Welles an ovation. But in later performances, the company had to be content with an untorn drapery; the first-night tear was too hard to duplicate.

Pictures here of Orson Welles backstage with his set design assistant, Richard Negri in the rehearsal room at the Stoll Theater, London in 1953.

www.richardnegri.co.uk

In his program note Welles says: "Lady In the Ice" is a kind of parable, showing that two people are never in love with each other to the same degree, at the same time.