I do love A Matter of Life and Death, The Red Shoes, The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp, Black Narcissus and A Canterbury Tale as well. However, there is something about The Tales of Hoffmann that is very special to me. Not just the dancing, the production values but also the opera Tales of Hoffmann itself. The music by Offenbach is outstanding with not a single weak link. As always from Powell and Pressburger it is a visually stunning production, with dazzling effects, beautiful costumes and sets and some of the most gorgeous Technicolour I have ever seen on film. The opera's music is lushly performed by the orchestra and Sir Thomas Beecham's, who I know best from his Delius and his La Boheme recording(with Bjorling, DeLos Angeles and Merrill), conducting never feels as though it's rushing or dragging. There are some changes to the story such as Lindorf being silent in the prologue, Stella turned as a ballet dancer, Nicklausse's(other than the villains of the opera the character who ties the opera's story together) role is abridged and Act 3(or Antonia's Tale) is shortened.Despite these changes, the film still maintains the spirit and essence of the story and opera. The dancing is just as dazzling as the film's visuals, Robert Helpmann is wonderful in all four roles particularly good as Dappertutto, but it was Moira Shearer's Olympia that really impressed. The singing is every bit as good, Robert Rounsville has a strong tenor voice as Hoffmann, Bruce Dargavel sings Coppelius, Dappertutto and Dr Miracle with just the right character and velvety evilness and Margharita Grandi(with Ludmilla Tcherina on film) striking as courtesan Giulietta, contrasting very well in the beautiful Barcarolle with the firm and very intelligently sung Nicklausse of Monica Sinclair. Dorothy Bond sings with clear, agile colouratura. Less successful is Ann Ayers as the consumptive and very downbeat Antonia, fine on screen but vocally at times she is a little shrill for my liking.Overall though, just another masterpiece from Powell and Pressburger that is will always be special to me. 10/10 Bethany Cox

It is an issue that can't be really settled: Can opera be blended with motion pictures? I have always felt that one of the most unfair deaths of the early 1920s was that of Enrico Caruso in 1921. Had Caruso been alive after 1927 sooner or later he would have been in motion pictures. With his voice (and stage experience) he would have been a natural in Hollywood. In the early 1930s opera singers like Lawrence Tibbett made films. Caruso would have been at home there. Moreover he occasionally recorded popular tunes (most notably, during World War I, "Over There" and Sullivan's "The Lost Chord"). He probably would have been singing Harold Arlen or Rogers and Hart or Gershwin or Kern.But would they have put on his performances in operas? Tibbett appeared in an occasional operetta like THE ROGUE SONG. But aside from singing an occasional opera song (like from THE BARBER OF SEVILLE) he never did a full opera. Neither did Jeanette MacDonald and Nelson Eddy (who did scenes from real and fake operas in MAYTIME). MacDonald did a scene from Mayerbeer's LES HUEGENOTS, but that four hour opera never was on any studio drawing board. Could they have done I PAGIACCI with Caruso? It's a one actor of about ninety minutes length. Couldn't that have been tried (had Caruso been around)?It really never was tried. Operettas were the limit, such as BABES IN TOYLAND, BITTERSWEET, or THE MIKADO (1939). It would not be until the 1970s when public television would start showing taped operas with Beverly Sills, Paverotti, Domingo, and others. But filming them is still a rarity. One exception to the rule - possibly the best - was THE TALES OF Hoffman (1951) produced by Michael Powell and Emerich Pressburger. It is an unusual choice for that pair, whose movies usually dealt with English society (like THE LIFE AND TIMES OF COLONEL BLIMP). But they had done the very fine THE RED SHOES a few years earlier, to international acclaim, and one senses this may have been a project that slightly expanded. Moira Shearer was the star of THE RED SHOES, and her dancing the ballet was the heart of the movie (and a prelude to the ironic, tragic conclusion). I keep wondering if Shearer suggested Leo Delibes' ballet, COPPELIA to the two producers, which is based on one of the three stories by E.T.A. Hoffmann that are the basis for this opera. COPPELIA is a comic ballet with a happy ending (as opposed to the original story) that would have been under ninety minutes. However, THE RED SHOES had a complete story about an impresario and his star. COPPELIA is about a woman fooling a mechanical doll maker.The opera by Jacques Offenbach is based on several Hoffmann stories sewed together as episodes of failed love told by Hoffman to various students in a tavern while he awaits his new love. The first, OLYMPIA, deals with the same story COPPELIA is from, except that it retains the semi-comic, tragedy of Hoffman's disillusionment with his "lover". Olympia is a doll that is presented to him as a living woman. He falls for her, but she is destroyed by her creator. Shearer was the dancer in this portion of the film (she dances very nicely, her steps perfect even when showing a slight eccentricity in movement due to being a robot). One has to remember - French opera was notorious in the 19th Century for having ballet portions for the ballet dancing mistresses of opera "supporters". Offenbach had known this when he composed his operettas in the heyday of the Second Empire (1851-1871) and he included it in this his final work (his monument as a composer). But Olympia also sings! Shearer doesn't. So she is given a false singing voice - but if you watch her face in the sequence she barely opens her lips! Later she danced the role of Stella, the final girlfriend of Hoffmann. But in the rest of the film the actresses are singers, not dancers.The singers, like Robert Rounseville, are good. The production is rich in color (my favorite sequence a portion of the second story - the one set in Venice, with "The Barcarolle" - where molten colored wax is turned into jewelry). I like opera, so I liked the film. But I wonder how many people unready for opera (or disliking it) would agree with my view.

I have a lot of admiration for Michael Powell and being a conductor, I wanted very much to see his Tales of Hoffmann. I've rarely been so disappointed! -If you are a film director student or a fan of old movies, I highly recommend you to watch his other movies such as "a Matter of Life and Death"/"Stairway to Heaven", "A Canterbury Tale", "Black Narcissus" or "The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp". This one would only disappoint your sophisticated taste because it is utterly out of fashion and not even revolutionary for its time.-If you are an opera buff like me, you'll hate it for several reasons: Offenbach's score has always been a problem in terms of musical accuracy and legitimacy. Some conductors have edited the manuscript (fully discovered only recently after decades of persevering research from many musicologists), some have added material composed by themselves or by others. This version is just ludicrous, it is completely manipulated and arranged for a cinema version. BUT that is not the worst: Sir Thomas Beecham's conducting is a heavy bore in many parts (dreadful overture for example). The singing is in English and not in french! Although, it was the fashion in those times to sing operas in the language of the country where it was performed and not in the original language: total heresy! At last, the voices are terrible: the tenor is way too light for Hoffmann and could never sing such a demanding role on stage, Giulietta is often flat, Antonia has the voice of a goat, and Olympia should rather sing the soundtrack of Snow White.-If you don't know opera and want to discover this beautiful work, please avoid this! It won't make you appreciate it, it doesn't even remotely give justice to Offenbach's masterpiece. I can't recommend any version in particular as there are never flawless (wait for mine:)but the Brian Large's with Domingo will be more likely to make you love the music.

It was George Romero's mention of this one in an interview (perhaps in the book THE ZOMBIES THAT ATE PITTSBURGH) that first piqued my interest. I sought it out and found it to be very interesting, indeed. Though I normally can't take opera, the sets and the costumes in this one made it worth the time it took to sit through it. (Being a comic book fan my entire life, I came to think of it very quickly as a comic book waiting to happen. Like the excellent V FOR VENDETTA.) Inspirational, to be sure- but, of even greater interest to Yours Truly, was the ten minutes or so of THE SORCEROR'S APPRENTICE- one of the extras on the DVD that I saw. THE SORCEROR'S APPRENTICE is definitely comic book material. Seek out THE TALES OF Hoffman- and don't forget to check of THE SORCEROR'S APPRENTICE while you're at it.