Memorable, crazy movie

Fantastic!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

A literary horror film--that sounds like an absurd concept, but Richard Burton, Elizabeth Taylor, and the Leonard Nimoy-like Andreas Teuber bring it off. The most striking aspect of Dr. Faustus are the surprisingly good special effects. The atmosphere, music, and colors combine in an hallucinogenic mix. Yes, it's stagey, as expected, but it flows well nonetheless; the erudite dialogue enhancing the forlorn creepiness.I agree with those who mention that Taylor's make-up is overdone in some scenes. She hardly needs artificial means to look sexy and alluring. It's remarkable that her character loses nothing despite having no dialogue; a good counterpoint to Faustus and Mephistopheles's learned verbal jousting. I even appreciate the copious amounts of Latin; I could scope out some of it, and, in general, it added to the Medieval luster.There's a lot going on here, both visually and intellectually. As others have noted, Teuber's description of hell is a sort of existentialist view of the human condition; Burton's desire to sell his soul has an escapist undertone, like a person on drugs. Like an addict, Burton/Faustus can't get enough hedonistic pleasures. But he has to ultimately 'come down,' literally down to hell. The ending is perhaps the best scene: hell swallows Faustus up a in a claustrophobic dungeon. Sensual pleasures become scenes of torture and madness. In another macabre scene, this time near the beginning, Burton comes upon a sort of desecrated altar in a hideous forest--the definition of haunted. At the other extreme, watching he and Teuber floating in space among the stars is beautiful, majestic. The rotting corpses are very effective, especially as they shift from dismal images of death to the horrid, all too real depictions of decay.The movie is entertaining enough with the relentless parade of horror; there's also the horrible inner tension, as Faustus continues to doubt his switch of allegiance from God to the Devil. One sort of hopes that he will come back to God. He nearly does. It's interesting that God will forgive him, and take him back; but the devil won't give him up without retribution.It's good that the generally obnoxious scene at the Papal court ultimately turns dark; this comic interlude disrupts the tone, as though being in league with the devil is a harmless prank. Faustus's trickster ability is much better handled when he exposes the Emperor's knight as a cuckhold. I must admit I haven't read the original play; I read Goethe's Faust many years ago for a class, but I'm not that familiar with the Faust myth/story. Anyway, a thoroughly enjoyable film for fans of classic horror, and even for those into classic literature. Where else can you hear that fine medievalism from no less a luminary than the Holy Roman Emperor, when he speaks of Faustus's powers as "cunning arts"?

This was a film I saw in my youth on late night television. It made quite an impression on me due to the power of Richard Burton's performance. Looking back after viewing the DVD, it seems like something the Burton's would have cooked up over a long holiday weekend. This was a great film for Richard Burton's ego. After all, he's in most of the scenes. Elizabeth Taylor seems strangely out of place as Helen of Troy and the effects of years of alcohol abuse caused her appearance to be seriously frayed at the edges. Still, this is a fun film that get's a watch from me about every five years. I particularly enjoyed Andres Truber's Portrayal of Mephistopheles. He is quite believable as the somewhat penitent fallen angel. The seven deadly sins sequence always gets a hardy laugh from me. The character of Lechery looks like a poofed up drag queen. The ending is quite dramatic and the delivery o the lines by Burton are indeed quite effective.

I have been intrigue by the legend of Dr. Faustus, the man who sell his very soul to the devil himself for knowledge and lust; after much research on the web. I have watched this film based on the play by Christopher Marlowe (a playwright who lived in the same time as Shakespeare) and it was AWESOME! I love Elizabeth Taylor and I have a few of her films. But I had gotten confuse whether it's a horror film or dramatic film? Of course the film's horrific images of Hell and that gross corpse cover with maggots when Dr. Faustus practiced necromancy (the magical art of bringing the dead to life) makes it a horror film.I was shocked by the negative reviews I would see on the web, I thought it was an excellent horror film. You know on the scene where Dr. Faustus sees the Seven Deadly Sins, I think the guy that played Lechery/Lust is very hot (*drool*). But they left out Gluttony & Sloth, well DUH! the film is 92 minutes.

I especially liked the film because, unlike so many re-makes of Shakespeare's works, here Marlowe's writing shines through almost untouched by later hands. As far as I know, this is the only one of Marlowe's plays that has made it to the screen, and the film is very true to the play itself. The language is authentic, the special effects understated, and the use of drama students in the secondary roles gives, to my mind, a freshness that a star-studded production would have lacked.If you are a fan of Renaissance theatre, you owe it to yourself to see Doctor Faustus.