No need for a long review here.Annoyance: the then typical American anti-propaganda propaganda effect in that Bluebeard had to be a Nazi of course, what else.Overall, the vulgarization of the original novel is quite easily drawn.-Bluebeard is no longer monstrous, but a handsome middle-aged man. -The room isn't filled with blood and hooks, but is "sterilized" by the concept of a refrigerated vault. And the rest of the plot modifications serve this version's setting not too bad, and aren't vociferously treacherous to the book...Finally, the beautiful women, especially the superb Joey Heatherton and all the nude really do give this the classic touch of the 60's-early 70's profane cinematic scope.Not as kitsch as others claim to be fair...

Enjoyable, campy fun featuring a number of beautiful women, most of whom go nude, a seductive score by Ennio Morricone, good old fashioned direction from Edward Dmytryk that stresses atmosphere and setting, and that uses the flashback structure to good effect. Burton is an amusing Bluebeard and he's a lot more enjoyable here than he was in The ExorcistII(77), and Joey Heatherton who worked with Dmytryk in Where Love Has Gone(64)is well cast as the only American and the film's only likable character. Though Heatherton's look is not period, her charm and appeal to Burton's Bluebeard is believable, especially since most of Bluebeard's other wives are depicted somewhat unflatteringly. Though the film's treatment and attitude towards women is largely exploitive, and the film could be better paced, it's nonetheless diverting trash and thanks to a clever ad campaign and trailer it was a hit when released in theaters in 1972. The theatrical trailer is featured on Anchor Bay's DVD.

A disappointing film version of the Bluebeard tale, with Richard Burton at his most colorless. The picture works neither as a straightforward horror flick (it has barely any suspense) nor as a tongue-in-cheek black comedy, although there hints of attempts at that direction, too (especially in the Raquel Welch segment). It's also quite long, and made somewhat indifferently. As for the women, I'd say that Nathalie Delon and Agostina Belli steal the show. (**)

This film has a lot of neat ideas, some beautiful women, and Burton as world-weary Baron with a campy, phony, middle-European accent. The script is clever and the sets are lavish, with Bluebeard's estate evoking E. A. Poe's Prince Prospero's: a different color dominating each separate room.Only Dmytryk fails as a director. The material frankly begs for someone like a Roger Vadim or even Roger Corman. BLUEBEARD should have been more fun, more intelligent than the Vincent Price movies of the time (such as THEATRE OF BLOOD) or even those of Roger Vadim (such as PRETTY MAIDS ALL IN A ROW), and yet it isn't. The script demands macabre humor and erotica, and Dmytryk couldn't deliver either, even in his heyday (and this film was made at the end of his slow, sad artistic decline). However, I personally enjoy this movie more for what it could have been than what it is. Unlike Chaplin's MONSUIER VERDOUX, and other "Bluebeard" movies directed by various people (from Edgar G. Ulmer to Claude Chabral) this is one film not inspired by the true story of Landru. It much more hearkens back to the original Perrault fairytale, only done in the modern times with Burton's Bluebeard as a proto-Nazi. It's not a bad idea for a film, but someone more hip, with more energy, was needed to pull it off.