DANTE'S INFERNO(1967)
Starring Oliver Reed, Judith Paris, and Gala Mitchell. Reed plays
the morose and brilliant
Dante Gabriel Rosetti. Sensual, prankish, and often drunk,
Dante was a gifted poet and
painter more concerned with his flamboyant life style than with
his literary and artistic output.
He drewinto his pre-Raphaelite circle some of the most eminent
figures
of his time; William Morris
and his wife Jane, the poet Swinburne, his poetess sister Christina
Rosetti, and their critic
and champion, John Rustin.
(1:30) (A) - UR
THE DEVILS (1970)
The Devils was the Ken Russell film version of the
controversial
play by John Whiting. The story,
based on Aldous Huxley's The Devils of Lourdon, concerns
controversial
17th-century French priest
Urban Grandier, whose radical political and religious notions and
profligate sex life earns him many enemies.
When a group of nuns appears to have been "bewitched" by Grandier,
his rivals feed on the resulting mass hysteria,
using this incident as an excuse to have the priest arrested.
Refusing
to confess to being in league
with Satan and to renounce his "heretical" views, Grandier undergoes
appalling tortures, and is finally
burned at the stake. Vanessa Redgrave co-stars as the head nun.
NC-17. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie
Guide
(1:50) - OP pan & scan version (A) --- letterboxed version + original trailer (B)
LISZTOMANIA (1975)
His audacious, vulgar, freewheeling fantasia on the life of
pianist
Franz Liszt ranks among
Russell's most outrageous efforts. Roger Daltrey, lead singer
for The Who, is awkward yet likeable
as the flamboyant piano performer with a bevy of fetching mistresses
and groupies, while Paul Nicholas is
completely outlandish as the scheming opera composer Richard Wagner.
There's no nod to reality here:
Liszt and Wagner were in fact friends, and Liszt, who became
Wagner's
father-in-law, actually assisted
in the production of Wagner's opulent productions. Russell, on the
other hand, presents Wagner as Liszt's
jealous rival ready to wreak havoc on the world by unleashing a
cryogenic Viking (Yes keyboardist Rick
Wakeman) and a horde of machine-gun wielding robot Nazis. In a
finale
out of Flash Gordon serials, Liszt
saves the day after surviving a guillotine designed for phallic
dismemberment. The film is fast and loud
and wildly undisciplined, much like one of Liszt's Hungarian
Rhapsodies. Look fast and you'll see
Ringo Starr as the pope. ~ Les Stone, All
Movie Guide
(1:45) (A) - OP
MAHLER (1974)
Russell made a number of biographical films of composers'
lives.
He embellished the other films with
certain characteristic flourishes, which include a focus on the
composers' sexual obsessions, poetically
telling anachronisms, and scenes which show Richard Wagner in a
bad light. The story of Mahler is recounted
in a much less complex and flamboyant manner and is a relatively
reverent study of the life and work of Austrian
composer Gustav Mahler, here played by Robert Powell. The film
tackles
the touchy dilemma of Mahler's
Jewishness in the anti-Semitic atmosphere of 19th-century Vienna.
He converts to Christianity, which has no effect
on his brilliant musical output but which eats away at his physical
and mental well-being. Gustav Mahler (1860-1911)
was a conductor and composer of the late Romantic era and
specialized
in huge symphonic works. Though his works were
performed widely during his lifetime, they were less and less-often
played until Leonard Bernstein's active
campaign on their behalf brought him renewed recognition as a
composer
of the first rank,
every bit the peer of Brahms or Stravinsky. ~
Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
(1:55) (A) - OP
THE MUSIC LOVERS (1972)
Tchaikovsky is given the Ken Russell treatment, which means
that there is plenty of music, plenty of passion,
plenty of debauchery, and plenty of excess. Tame by
Russell's later standards, the film nevertheless thrives
on creative and sexual anguish. Richard Chamberlain plays
Tchaikovsky
with a bug-eyed intensity as a composer
consumed by his art -- so consumed that his romantic attachments
become bisexual and irrational. He falls in love
with Nina (Glenda Jackson), the hysterical trollop he marries with
dire consequences. As he explodes in emotion,
his public performance of his Piano Concerto in B flat minor becomes
a cue for flashbacks to a series of discomforting
childhood events that suggests incestuous relations with his sister.
Back in real time, Tchaikovsky has to deal with
Nina's outbursts while juggling his homosexual urges and his almost
hidden desire for Count Anton Chiluvsky
(Christopher Gable). The film also details the curious relationship
between Tchaikovsky and his rich patronness,
the middle-aged widow Madame Nadedja von Meck (Isabella Telezynska),
who loves Tchaikovsky deeply but
refuses to meet him -- their only communications being by letters,
even though he lives on her estate.
Andre Previn and the London Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's
music.
~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide.
(2:02) (A) - OP
VALENTINO (1977)
Rudolph Valentino, born in Italy in 1895 as Alfonzo Raffaele
Pierre
Philibert Guglielmi, emigrated
to the U.S. and became for a time the reigning male romantic lead
of the silent-film era. He died in 1926,
having led a short, troubled and tempestuous life which included
several stints in prison. The crowds
surrounding his coffin before and during his funeral were among
the largest ever seen in the U.S.
In this film, Ken Russell has used events from the famous actor's
life as the basis for an extended
meditation on the nature of stardom, and especially on what it means
to be a sex idol. Beginning
and ending with the funeral of Valentino (Rudolf Nureyev), the story
chronicles his rise to Hollywood
stardom from life as an Italian emigrant dishwasher and show-dancer.
Often embroiled in controversies
about his manliness (or perceived lack of ), in the film he dies
as a result of internal injuries suffered
in a boxing match he fought in to defend his honor.
~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
(2:07) (A) - OP
WOMEN IN LOVE (1970)
Set in 1920s England, where free-spirited artist Gudrun (Glenda
Jackson)
and her schoolteacher sister
Ursula (Jennie Linden) make the acquaintance of lifelong friends
Gerald (Oliver Reed) and Rupert
(Alan Bates). The foursome attends a picnic in honor of a pair of
newlyweds, who put a damper on
the proceedings (literally!) by drowning in a nearby lake. Evidently
unscathed by this tragedy,Gerald
and Rupert participate in a nude wrestling match later that evening
(this was the sequence that got
the most press, thanks to fleeting glimpses of the male stars'
privates).
Gerald marries Gudrun,
Rupert weds Ursula, and the foursome embarks upon a Swiss honeymoon.
The holiday is marred by
infidelity and sudden death, leaving Rupert to wonder aloud just
what it is that makes men and women
"tick." An Academy Award went to Glenda Jackson, while nominations
were bestowed upon
screenwriter Larry Kramer and cinematographer Billy Williams (who
received an
uncredited assist from director Ken Russell). ~
Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
(1:50) (A) - OP
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