 Much to his surprise, Michael Powell (I) (qv) had great difficulty  persuading Moira Shearer (qv) to be in the film. She held out for  a year before giving in to him. Shearer herself, however, did not  particularly care for Powell. In later years, she described the  making of the film as being a terrible ordeal: Powell was distant  and aloof and never really gave her much direction; and having to  dance for hours on end on concrete floors also physically took its  toll on all the dancers, making their legs swell up.