The extraordinary
amount of care that has gone into devising the screenplay does a substantial
amount of the work, but the co-directors are very good at getting first-rate
performances out of the Oxford University Dramatic Society, and between them
seem to know all there is to know about the intricacies of film production as
well.
A magnificent
film of Marlowe’s play about the German doctor who sold his soul for
magic powers and went to hell for it, shot at the Laurentiis Studios in Rome with
an air of Rossellini’s Giovanna d’Arco al rogo.
Variety
was most foolishly unimpressed, Renata Adler in the New York Times screeched like Bluebeard’s hawk and shat.