Word: mephisto
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...Mother Oppenheim to rescue her daughter's virtue. When Marguerite has accidentally poisoned her mother (as in Goethe), Faust orders the Devil to rescue her. Only then is he forced to sell his soul, and the two strike their bargain to the coldly disinterested sound of remote hunting-horns. Mephisto, cheating, leads Faust not back to his love but straight to the Pit; Marguerite ascends to Heaven...
...impressive when his work is performed with the insight of conductors like Charles Munch. Mr. Munch knows exactly where dull spots need his stimulus, and where he can let the phrases take their own course. Moreover, he had the advantage of excellent soloists. Suzanne Danco (Marguerite) and Martial Singher (Mephisto) sang with occasionally imperfect tone, but supreme understanding of how to translate French vowels and consonants into musical sound...
...easy to see why Berlioz is called the "father of modern orchestration." In Mephisto's sardonic serenade, for instance, plucked strings serve as a monstrous guitar-like accompaniment; in the Ride to the Abyss, woodwinds croak like vultures and wild hoofbeats run through the strings. But the Damnation of Faust is not a mere succession of orchestral and choral "effects." Besides dramatic fireworks, it contains pages of melodic beauty--like Marguerite's Romance--that place it among the most inspired works of the Romantic period...
Played in an imaginary 19th century principality, the picture is dressed up with lavish sets and up-to-date allusions to airplanes, submarines, germ warfare and atomic power. There are also a number of pseudo-slapstick chases-e.g., at the climax, Mephisto, menaced by an angry mob because his alchemistic gold has turned to sand, vanishes once & for all in a puff of smoke...
Michel Simon makes a bawdy, bumbling old Mephisto, whose bearded, grinning face constantly pops up at windows and peers out from behind shrubbery. As the young Faust, Gerard Philipe is a romantic figure. Director Clair describes his picture as "tragicomedy." It has neither the passion of Marlowe's and Goethe's Fausts nor the visual inventiveness of Clair's best films (Sous les Toits de Paris, A Notts La Liberte), but it is an unconventional and diverting treatment of a traditional tale...