I read Noel Streatfeild's BALLET SHOES over and over when I was little and combined three elements I looked for in books at that age: Plucky girls, serious ambitions that are taken seriously by the adults around them and an exotic setting in both time and place. The three orphans, Pauline, Petrova and Posy, don't immediately want to be famous, but get the idea when someone points out the uniqueness of their last name -- Fossil, because they were adopted by an eccentric paleontologist. That paleontologist, Great-Uncle Matthew or "Gum," has been off adventuring for several years, and with money running out the girls' guardians decide to first take in boarders and then enroll the girls in dance school with an eye to getting them parts on the London stage. Pauline likes dancing but finds she likes acting better; Posy takes to ballet just like the mother who gave her up; and Petrova endures her roles while dreaming of an aviation career.
I definitely enjoyed last year's BBC adaptation of "Ballet Shoes," which I just caught on DVD, but I'm not sure it would make too much sense if you hadn't read the book. The three young actresses give strong performances as the Fossil sisters, among them Emma Watson of the "Harry Potter" movies (as Pauline), and the supporting adults are fine with the exception of Richard Griffiths as Gum, who is terrific. (The film became worth a rental for me approximately 10 minutes in when Griffiths bellows, "I keep a pack of women in this house, and there isn't one of them about anywhere" -- directly from the book.)
The film is largely faithful to the novel down to details of the always-too-tight household budget and the clothes you need to go to dancing school. A romantic subplot added to the movie doesn't really work, but it doesn't distract much from the rest of the movie. I even picked up on a detail I certainly wouldn't have noticed reading the original book, that the maiden-aunt schoolteachers who move into Gum's house together and tutor the girls were probably lesbians. (It's only a quick beat though, in case you're showing it to an impressionable young lady; the film is rated PG "for smoking," which seems dumb to me.) But it's so faithful that it under-explains a few things, which I intuitively understood and expected in the course of the plot. That's why I recommend, if it sounds like something you would be interested in, that you read the book first, then see the movie.
As for me, I'm going to try and dig up some of Streatfeild's adult novels.
3 days ago
4 comments:
Thanks for writing about this, Ellen. I just Ballet Shoes for my ballet-crazed goddaughter, and reread it before I sent it along for a nostalgic turn. I didn't even know about the BBC adaptation - I will netflix it.
Is that the book that starts a whole series about different types of shoes? If so, I used to love it!
Jess -- you are correct, I didn't read many of them but I remember Tennis Shoes and Traveling Shoes and I'm sure there were many more. But I always liked Ballet Shoes best.
Nikki, I'm so glad you have read this too! There's another adaptation on Netflix from the 70s as well, but I haven't watched that so I can't say whether it's any good.
I have watched the '70s version of "Ballet Shoes" and I wasn't terribly impressed. Maybe it was the poor film quality.
One fun connection between the films (thanks IMDB) is that the actress playing Sylvia in the new version is the daughter of the actress playing Theo in the '70s one. And both were in Pride and Prejudice '95 (Mrs. Gardiner and Miss Darcy).
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