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I love this movie so much

Admirable film.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

I love the films of Powell and Pressburger beyond all reason and at least three of Powell's films would make it into my all time top 10 favourite movies. Tales of Hoffmann is one of the few of Powell's films I hadn't previously seen so I got the DVD and sat down to watch expecting to be blown away as usual. However, my eager anticipation turned to boredom very quickly. It's hard to admit it but I just didn't like this film.The main problem for me is the music. I just hated most of it. Every now and then there's the odd fragment of a tune that was OK but for the most part it just sounded like hideous caterwauling. I've tried over the years to get into opera but in the end I realized I just don't like it and there's no point in pretending otherwise. I never want to hear this music again. The fact that the actors were syncing their lips to singers who had pre-recorded the sound didn't help either.But it isn't just the music. The whole thing is very stagey anyway and despite the expected gorgeous use of Technicolor and some beautiful set pieces it just drags. Imagine watching two hours of MTV during which time you enjoy just 2 or 3 videos and the rest is stuff you hate both musically and visually. (Actually MTV is always like that).I did like the ballet sequences and I especially liked the sections featuring Moira Shearer.So I still love Powell's films beyond all reason but I have to be honest and say this one I hated.

A film of Offenbach's opera, choreographed by Frederick Ashton, designed by Hein Heckroth, and played by the Royal Philharmonic under Sir Thomas Beecham. Dear God, almost every second of it is overwhelmingly lovely. It may, in fact, be one of the most beautiful things wrought by man.The only drawback is that I am now completely smitten by Ludmilla Tcherina, one of the most beautiful works of God, and would sell my reflection to get hold of the 'missing' Powell and Pressburger films she also stars in, 'Oh... Rosalinda!' and 'Honeymoon.'If you loved 'The Red Shoes', you have to see this.

Commendable for its avant garde techniques, this film was no doubt appreciated by Kenneth Anger, Fellini and Mario Bava. The first two acts are pretty solid - Olympia is whimsical surrealism and Giulietta is sensual surrealism. The Antonia segment torpedoes the entire project and I strongly suggest viewers quit at the end of act two, while they're ahead. Powell either ran out of money, ran out of inspiration, or both. Hoffmann's character is essentially written out of the third act and Powell focuses at length on Anne Ayars - a dumpy old thing with no screen presence. For a director who always discovered great looking talent, from Deborah Kerr to Helen Mirren, it seems suspicious that he would want Ayars in one of his most colorful films. One can pretty accurately surmise that she was sleeping with one of the money bags involved in the production. It makes for pretty miserable finale.For Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang fans, this film contains a big animated role for Robert Helpmann who played the Child Catcher.

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.