The British filmmaking team of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger is responsible for some of the greatest movies ever to come from across the Big Pond, including A Matter of Life and Death (a.k.a. Stairway to Heaven, 1946), Black Narcissus (1947), and The Red Shoes (1948), to name just a few. This luxurious adaptation of Jacques Offenbach's famous opera is something of a follow-up to The Red Shoes, as it also stars ravishing redhead Moira Shearer, whose beauty is sublimely captured by the Technicolor camerawork of cinematographer Christopher Challis. Offenbach's phantasmagorical piece is transferred to film with great imagination and taste, with unusually inventive effects in a resplendent production that's a joy to look at. A brilliant integration of narrative and dance, the film presents three storylines, all of which spring from the imagination of Hoffmann (Robert Rounseville), a student spurned by the prima ballerina (Shearer) whom he loves. In his dreams she represents lovers from his past lives—a life-size doll (also Shearer) created by a magician, a beautiful and bewitching courtesan (Ludmilla Tcherina), and a famous conductor's daughter (Ann Ayars). Powell forces viewers to work a little: in true opera fashion the dialogue is sung rather than spoken, and the stories require fairly close attention. But the film excels in cinematic virtuosity and ingenious stagecraft, and any viewer willing to become immersed in the fantasy world created by Powell and Pressburger will be amply rewarded. DVD extras include an audio commentary by filmmaker Martin Scorsese and film historian Bruce Eder, a video interview with horror director George A. Romero (a fan of the film), the 1956 musical short The Sorcerer's Apprentice based on the story by Goethe, and galleries of production and publicity stills. Highly recommended. (E. Hulse)
[Blu-ray Review—June 24, 2022—Criterion, 133 min., not rated, Blu-ray: $39.95—Making its debut on Blu-ray, The Tales of Hoffmann (1951) is presented with a gorgeous 4K digital restoration and extras including a 1992 audio commentary filmmaker Martin Scorsese and criticBruce Eder (newly updated by Eder), a 2005 interview with filmmaker George A. Romero, the1956 short musical film The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (based on the Johann Wolfgang von Goethe story and directed by Michael Powell), a collection of production designer Hein Heckroth’s design sketches and paintings, a gallery of production and publicity photographs, and a leaflet with an essay by film historian Ian Christie. Bottom line: Powell and Pressburger’sTechnicolor phantasmagoria sparkles on Blu-ray.]