Doctor Faustus (1967)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Directors:

Richard Burton
Nevill Coghill

Writers:

Nevill Coghill (writer)
Christopher Marlowe (play)

Release Date:

6 February 1968 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Tagline:

The story of a scientist who sells his soul to the devil

Plot:

A man sells his soul to the devil in order to have the woman he loves.

Plot Keywords:

Hell | Deal With The Devil | Based On Play | Character Name In Title

Cast

Richard Burton	...	Doctor Faustus
Elizabeth Taylor	...	Helen of Troy
Andreas Teuber	...	Mephistopheles
Ian Marter	...	Emperor
Elizabeth O'Donovan	...	Empress
David McIntosh	...	Lucifer
Jeremy Eccles	...	Belsebub
Ram Chopra	...	Valdes
Richard Carwardine	...	Cornelius
Richard Heffer	...	Disciple #1
Gwydion Thomas	...	Scholar / Lechery
Richard Durden	...	Knight (as Richard Durden-Smith)
Patrick Barwise	...	Wagner
Adrian Benjamin	...	Pope
Jeremy Chandler	...	Attendant

Runtime:

93 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Australia:PG | Singapore:PG | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | UK:PG (video rating) | UK:X (original rating) (1990) | USA:Unrated

Filming Locations:

Rome, Lazio, Italy

Company:

Nassau Films

Trivia:

For the secondary roles, director Richard Burton, an Oxford graduate, cast drama students from Oxford University.

Quotes:

Doctor Faustus: [speaking about Helen of Troy] Was this the face that launched a thousand ships and burnt the topless towers of Illium? Sweet Helen, make me immortal with a kiss!

Movie Connections:

Referenced in How I Created Doctor Faustef (2008) (V)

An Ambitious Undertaking

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.