Doctor Faustus

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Richard Burton and Nevill Coghill; Screenplay by Coghill, from Christopher Marlowe's play; Produced by Richard Burton and Richard McWhorter for Columbia Pictures. Photography by Gabor Pogany; Edited by John Shirley; Music by Mario Nascimbene. Starring Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor and Andreas Teuber.

Pretentious big-budget repertory theatrical tries to use sumptuous sets and photography to create a fantasy classic, but it turns out to be a pithy Burton ego trip, eminently forgettable and one of the weakest cinema incarnations of the Faust legend.

Shortly after I picked up a copy of Marlowe's play, I spotted the film in a video store. Having read the play first, I wondered how the film would portray it.

It did pretty well. The film apparently wasn't a high-budget item, but it conveyed the essence of the play. And, as important, it used the basic Marlowe play. That adds a touch that a more "modernized" film wouldn't have. In that, it shares a legacy found in many Shakespearean films.

The Faust story is well enough known so that there are no plot twist surprises. It may not be for everyone, but it's worth a view. Richard Burton makes a fairly believable Faust.

Thank God, Richard Burton did this film. A man who was unjustly considered a sell-out, he did this first on stage and then for film with all profits of both productions going to Oxford. Yes, it's cheaply designed and theatrical, with an distracting music score...but when else will you see a film of Marlowe's play with an actor as great playing the part?

I realize the film has its shortcomings, but its virtues are also plainly evident. Those who dismiss it a just a bad film strike me as a bunch of gluttonous clods or anti-intellectual pismires. It's a movie to cherish.

Cerebral and altogether too-literal transcript of Christopher Marlowe’s venerable play – the end result is opulent yet claustrophobic, not to mention dull.

Burton the producer/director certainly made inspired choices for his collaborators – production designer John De Cuir, cinematographer Gabor Pogany, composer Mario Nascimbene. Burton the actor, then, is riveting as always (particularly the monologue towards the end) – but real-life spouse Elizabeth Taylor is simply ludicrous as Faustus’ object of desire (in various disguises including Helen of Troy)! The remaining cast is largely made up of Oxford University drama students (the University itself, of which Burton was a former graduate, partly financed the film!): of these, only Andreas Teuber’s bald-headed, monk-clad Mephistopheles manages a striking performance.

The “Mondo Digital” review had likened this to the cult horror films made by Hammer, Roger Corman and Mario Bava: judging by the campy Papal sequence (with a host of fey clergymen on whom Faustus plays childish pranks) and an equally tacky conjuring act before a medieval court, I’d say that Burton and Coghill probably drew more on the decadent work of Federico Fellini or Pier Paolo Pasolini than anything else! Anyway, the experimental nature of the film extends to the baffling over-use of a pointless ‘foggy’ effect; its depiction of lust, however, emerges as traditionally naïve – with frolicking satyrs in a garden setting and decorous female nudity (including Taylor herself for one very brief moment).

Ulimately, DOCTOR FAUSTUS is to be considered an interesting failure – a personal tour-de-force for Burton but which, perhaps, needed a steadier hand…say, Joseph Losey (with whom the two stars would soon work on BOOM! [1968], curiously enough, a similar and equally maligned blend of fantasy and theatricality).

Here the most distinguished star of the screen at the time in a brilliant characterization as the legendary Faustus who sold his soul to Mephistopheles for a woman . The film's opening prologue states : "A tragic legend written down in the sixteenth century wherein a learned scientist honoured with the laurels of his university, sold his soul to the devil for still greater knowledge and power in the unknown". It deals with Faustus (Richard Burton , being his first, ending and only ever financed and directed) , a scientific at the University of Wittenberg where he earns his doctorate degree . His insatiable and stubborn appetite for knowledge and power using witchery leads him to conjure Mephistopheles out of inferno . As Faustus sells his soul to devil in exchange for youth and love of Helen of Troy (Elizabeth Taylor who shows up entirely painted in silver body-paint and having no lines of dialogue at all) and as Alexander's paramour . Faust signs the pact in his own blood and in writing , then Mephistopheles (Andreas Teuber) reveals the works of the devil to Faustus.

This classy story by Columbia Pictures concerns the scientist Faust who sells his soul to the devil in order to have a long life as well as the woman he loves . This is a stagy -but visually impressive- and stilted rendition , there outstanding the baroque settings by John DeCuir , the weird musical score by Mario Nascimbene and the colorful cinematography by Gábor Pogány . The movie is deemed to be an official shot record of a 1966 stage production of "Doctor Faustus" that Richard Burton had played in which had been staged and directed by Nevill Coghill with support players from the Oxford University Dramatic Society . Based on the play by playwright Christopher Marlowe who also wrote "Edward II" , "Jew of Malta" , and "Tamburlaine" . Starred by Andreas Teuber and by marriage Elizabeth Taylor/Richard Burton , though Actress Elizabeth Taylor's acting is completely mute , as her characterization being entirely silent . Being the sixth of eleven films that Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton performed in together , these are the following ones : Cleopatra , The Sandpiper , Anne of the thousand days , The Comedians , Boom , Under milk wood , and the latter of which was : Hammersmith is out . Richard Burton gives a nice acting as Faustus who employing necromancy bargains away his soul to Lucifer in exchange for living 24 years during which Mephistopheles will be his servant . Burton is magnificent , his performance swells to fit the screen and Elizabeth Taylor looking beautiful and desirable . See it for Burton's brilliant performance and Taylor's looks . Richard Burton was a notorious and prestigious actor with a long career until his early death at 58 . He starred a lot of of movies as in his native country , U.K. , as in the US ; as he played films in Hollywood : My cousin Rachel , The Robe , Alexander the Great , The rains of Ranchipur , Bitter victory , and he is back England where shoots Look Back in Anger , Hamlet , A midsummer night's dream . And superproductions as The Longest day , Cleopatra , VIPs , Zulu , When the eagles dare . And , subsequently , he plays all kinds of genres as drama , Spy , historical , Wartime , Thriller , such as : The night of the Iguana , Ice Palace , The spy who came in from the Cold , Staircase , The assassination of Trotsky , Massacre in Rome , The Klansman , Exorcist II : the heretic , Absolution , The Medusa Touch , Circle of two , Klansman , Tristan and Isolda and his last one : Nineteen Eight-Four . After the 1966 stage production of "Doctor Faustus", star Richard Burton did not show up on stage again for about a decade until he portrayed on Broadway a psychiatrist in Equus in which he followed playing the same character in the Equus (1977) film version directed by Sidney Lumet.

This Doctor Faustus was well produced by Richard McWhorter , being one of five collaborations of actor Richard Burton and producer Richard McWhorter, most of them were period costumer pictures . The films include Becket (1964), The taming of the shrewd (1967) , Anna of the thousand days (1969) and The spy who came in from the Cold (1965) .The film's co-writer and co-director Nevill Coghill was Merton Professor of English at Oxford University at the time that the film was developed , made and released . The picture was professional but strangely directed Richard Burton and Nevill Coghill , being he first, final and only ever cinema movie directed by both authors .

Other flicks about Faust legend -usually based on Gothe's poem titled ¨Faust¨- are as follows : the classic example of Germanic expressionist titled ¨Faust¨ 1926 German silent by F.W. Murnau with Emil Jannings ; ¨Hammersmith¨1972 by Peter Ustinov also starred by Richard Burton , Elizabeth Taylor ; ¨Doctor Faustus¨ 1982 with Jon Finch , Hanns Zischler and even a Comedy retelling ¨Bedazzled¨ 1968 by Stanley Donen with Dudley Moore , Peter Cook , Rachel Welch and another terror version : ¨Faust : love of the damned¨ by Brian Yuzna with Andrew Divoff , Jeffrey Combs , Mark Frost .