I just got back from conducting a short seminar on The Red Shoes at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, which went surprisingly well. (A friend of a friend is teaching the class, and I was invited to come in as a guest lecturer.) I did a shot-by-shot analysis of a couple of scenes and had a great time. The timing was especially appropriate because Deborah Kerr, star of The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp and Black Narcissus and a longtime companion of Michael Powell, died earlier this week. Kerr was discovered by Powell and Pressburger, and was far more interesting in her early work with the Archers than she was later in Hollywood. The obituaries give scant attention to this period in her career, which is a shame. In particular, nobody who has seen her in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (in three roles!) has ever forgotten it. If you've never seen this movie, well, this is as good a time as any...