Word: hoffmann
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Jacques Offenbach himself labeled his "Tales of Hoffmann" a "fantastic opera," and the London Films adaptation is just that. The Technicolor screenplay displays all of the lavishness and sensuality that the libretto and score imply. The result may surprise the unwary moviegoer, and it may even irritate him a little. For that reason it is important to remember that the movie, like the opera, is intended to be "fantastic...
...film is a close approximation of the original. It is divided, in a manner that seems a little artificial for a motion picture, into a prologue, three acts, and an epilogue. In the prologue Hoffmann, a student in an ancient German university city, tells of his love for the ballerina Stella. Later, in Luther's Tavern, he falls into a reverie and tells his fellow students the three tales of his "folly of love...
These three acts show Hoffmann and his companion Nicklaus in Paris, Venice, and an island off the coast of Greece. By straining one can find significance in Hoffman's three loves: the automaton Olympia, the courtesan Giulietta, and the singer Antonia. Then, too, Hoffmann's evil genius appears in different guises in each adventure, to thwart Hoffmann's desire. But whatever symbolism there is in the story is secondary to the purely sensual pleasure of the movie...
Princeton: Cole, g; Mills, l.d.; Bryan, r.d.; Weeden (C), l.w.; Davis, c.; Hoffmann...
...German political factions, including the Communists, cheered the news of the invasion. Fresh from Helgoland, where a century ago Poet Hoffmann, von Fallers-leben had written Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, Invader Leudesdorff exulted: "This is the first time since the war that all Germans are united...