Il dottor Faustus

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.

Richard Burton co-produced, co-directed, and stars in this adaptation of Christopher Marlowe's play "The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus", concerning an aged 16th century German scholar who conjures up Mephistopheles, servant to Lucifer. Despite a warring of conscience in which saints and demons both attempt to sway Faustus to their side, the conflicted doctor signs his soul over to the Devil in exchange for lust and power, quickly discovering the black magic not living up to its promise. Marlowe's poetry, like subterranean Shakespeare, seems to flow naturally from Burton, and the combination of soliloquy and performance is a lively one. The art direction, production design, and cinematography are all first-rate, with pop-art colors insanely, imaginatively blended together like bewitched Jell-O powder. Elizabeth Taylor's intermittent (and mostly silent) entrances and exits as Helen of Troy probably do the picture more harm than good, but Burton is in fine form (after an unsure start) and Andreas Teuber cuts a striking figure as the Devil's Aid. The film has the same late-'60s, hallucinogenic quality of the other-worldly "Barbarella" (and no wonder: both pictures were made in Rome under the auspices of movie mogul Dino de Laurentiis). You can't take your eyes off "Doctor Faustus"--and, for fear of missing anything, you wouldn't want to. **1/2 from ****

It was an ambitious undertaking for Richard Burton, to film Christopher Marlowe's classic Dr. Faustus with an untried amateur cast. I'd say he got a mixed bag of results.

Well, they weren't all that amateur, they were the members of the Oxford Dramatic Society and quite a number of them went on to have substantial careers in film and theater. Fans of the Doctor Who series will recognize Ian Marter who played Harry Sullivan during the Tom Baker reign as the Doctor, he's probably the most well known of the cast.

Of course there's Elizabeth Taylor who plays the brief part of Helen of Troy who in legend is ultimate in feminine beauty. She has no dialog, but she makes her presence known.

Faustus, a man who devotes his entire life to the pursuit of knowledge and somehow feels he's left a lot out of his life. Piety and service to God ain't cutting it any more. He makes a deal with Lucifer himself and even gets one of the fallen angels, Mephistopheles to act as a personal servant and conveyor of Faustus's wishes to the Prince of Darkness.

Of course he gets what he wants, but there's a day of reckoning and Faustus just simply doesn't want to cough up the soul. What do you expect from a guy who constantly refers to himself in the third person? Faustus is rather full of himself.

From what little research I did, Richard Burton made a concerted effort in this film to perform it close to Marlowe's own vision. There seems to be a few versions of this out there and it's all open to speculation.

It was an ambitious undertaking, not entirely successful, but not a total failure either. And Elizabeth Taylor looks pretty good in it.

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.

Marlow's play about the man who sold his soul to the devil for 27 years of pleasure is not the most cheerful of topics. But the horror element is well-played in this classy production with Burton as the title character and Liz Taylor as Helen of Troy, the "face that launched a thousand ships."

Mario Nascimbene's spooky score gives an appropriately dark mood to this great masterpiece of a story.