Saturday, January 1, 2011

The Tales of Hoffmann, 1951 (Grade F)


DIRECTORS:  Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger
Any Awards?  Not that we know of --and we would be surprised if there were any
CAST: Robert Rounseville; Moria Shearer; Pamela Brown; Edmond Audran; Robert Helpmann; Meinhart Maur; Frederick Ashton; Philip Leaver; Leonide Massine; Ludmilla Tcherina; Anne Ayars; Mogens Wieth; Lionel Harris

sez says: OMG--this was awful--but it was also pretty strange--so the strange kept us watching (using fast forward liberally)  In the end I had to confess it was bad. It claims to be an Opera and has lots of  dancing and yes signing going on.  But it was like no opera I've ever seen before.   It contains various stories linked together about a man who keeps falling in love with women, who, for a variety of reasons, are not for him. And then, in the end ......wait...you'll have to sit through this to find out how it finally winds itself up.

On the other hand the costumes and hairdos were fantastic-- a think if I were a drag queen I might have felt like I'd found my true family residing here. But that might just be an unfair stereo typing of drag queens on my part.  Overall grade F

mjc says: this film called to mind, viscerally, my early 20s horror of OPERA.  Carmen it is not.  Add a dash of costumes from Christopher Street without any gay panache and you have the makings of a disaster. At such times fast forward is the only option.