It was the crowning achievement of the careers of director Michael Powell and writer Emeric Pressburger, who throughout the 1940s had established themselves as by far Britain's most creatively adventurous filmmaking team. After A Matter of Life and Death and Black Narcissus had established their talent for combining personal fantasy with genuine mass appeal on an impressively lavish Technicolored scale, they decided to make an epic statement about the all-encompassing power and pull of Art, choosing dance as their vehicle (presumably on the grounds of instant visual appeal).

Powell had already experimented with what he called "composed film" at the end of Black Narcissus, but The Red Shoes saw its first full flowering - every element, be it music, colour, sound, movement, design or performance, was meticulously pre-calculated, much as a composer writes a music score, to create the most overwhelming combination possible. The result was one of the most thrillingly imaginative films ever to emerge from this country - the story of a ballerina who is driven to the point of madness and death by her obsession with her craft is about far wider issues than just dance. Moira Shearer is unforgettable as the dancer, with Anton Walbrook and Marius Goring giving impeccable support as the sinister impresario-cum-Svengali and the ambitious young composer.

Criterion have pulled all the stops out with this DVD. The transfer is staggering, and not just considering the age of the film. Personally supervised by cinematographer Jack Cardiff (one of the century's finest colour cameramen), it's by far the most vibrant, vivid copy of 'The Red Shoes' that I've seen, and that includes numerous cinema screenings. The film was shot in 4:3, so you wouldn't expect it to be anamorphic. The sound, inevitably, is mono, and betrays its age rather more than does the picture - but it still sounds like an entirely accurate reproduction of what its makers intended. There's also a generous selection of 36 chapter stops.

The quantity and quality of the extras places this DVD very high among Criterion's best efforts. For starters, there are two commentary tracks, one containing Jeremy Irons reading the novelisation that Powell & Pressburger wrote to accompany the release of the film, and the other containing superbly-compiled and edited contributions from stars Moira Shearer and Marius Goring, cinematographer Jack Cardiff, composer Brian Easdale, film historian Ian Christie and avid fan Martin Scorsese.

Martin Scorsese? Yes, the very same - he's long cited The Red Shoes as being among his all-time favourite films, and his contribution to the commentary works on three levels: as a fan of the film since childhood, as a close friend of Michael Powell (who married his editor Thelma Schoonmaker), and as a film-maker drawing inspiration from the unlikeliest sources - he's at his most enthralling discussing the boxing sequences of Raging Bull in the context of the ballet scene, one of their major inspirations. But his contribution is just one of many, and since both Marius Goring and Brian Easdale died shortly after recording their contributions, and neither Moira Shearer nor Jack Cardiff are exactly spring chickens, it's an immensely valuable historical record as well as making for fascinating listening (albeit tinged with a touch of annoyance - when is Scorsese going to start recording commentaries for his own films?).

There's also a massive stills gallery containing over a hundred cast and crew portraits, on-location shots from London, Paris and Monte Carlo, plus stills from a deleted and now-lost scene with captions explaining the context (sensibly, the gallery has been divided up into five separate sections, a definite improvement on most DVDs with similar features). Scorsese supplied the memorabilia gallery from his own collection of lobby cards, posters, wallpaper, script pages, postcards, British and French theatre programmes and publicity leaflets. Best of all, there's a section that takes Hein Heckroth's original designs for the ballet and sets them to the music - you can either have these fill the screen or watch them side by side with the final filmed version (and, as a further bonus, you can opt to have Jeremy Irons reading the original Hans Christian Andersen story instead of the music). There's also the original trailer.

And on top of all that there's a comprehensive Powell & Pressburger biography and filmography, but this goes much further than the usual bog-standard list of titles that that would suggest. Click on each title and you get a brief description and major credits, which leads to either a selection of stills or, with most of the major titles, an entire film clip - so, for instance, if you select Black Narcissus, you get the spectacular climax with Deborah Kerr and Kathleen Byron slugging it out on the bell tower (other clips include 49th Parallel, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, A Canterbury Tale, I Know Where I'm Going!, A Matter of Life and Death, The Small Back Room, The Elusive Pimpernel, The Tales of Hoffmann, Oh Rosalinda!!, The Battle of the River Plate, Ill Met By Moonlight and The Boy Who Turned Yellow). Sadly, the work involved in terms of rights clearance for the clips makes it extremely unlikely that many other DVDs will follow Criterion's example, but for a demonstration of just what the medium is capable of when real care and dedication are involved it's hard to think of a better example.

As a footnote, it should also be mentioned that The Red Shoes also features in Carlton's budget-priced Silver Collection. Priced at only a tenner, it's an ideal alternative for those just wanting the film and who aren't bothered about the extra features offered by the Criterion disc. Not having seen it, I can't comment on the quality of the transfer, but the film itself should be identical in terms of actual content.

Michael Brooke