Some directors paint a decidedly linear picture,tell a story the way you'd hear it from Grandpa,if he was sitting in a rocker,relating details in a manner that you could almost close your eyes and envision the tale unfolding as if you were right there experiencing it next to him.Some directors choose not to follow that route,choosing a far more fucked up path to take the viewer on.Ken Russell oftimes likes to do that.Sometimes he's very successful in purveying a twisted vision,but once in awhile,his finished product flops around like a brook trout gasping for air in a bucket on a rowboat.This entry,which was released the same year as his successful yet equally bananas "Tommy"(1975),is a perfect example,all but disappearing from the face of the earth since audiences and critics alike first walked out of theaters scratching their heads over the experience.
She loves you,and you know that can't be bad,says Pope Ringo I.
Russell paints an impressionistic picture of Franz Liszt,19th century composer,if he were a rock star of the day,tickling the ivories in front of throngs of screaming teenaged fans,and bedding amorous groupies at every juncture,with ham-fisted bedroom humour and bizarre visual flair.An interesting cast sinks in this production.He recruits Roger Daltrey,frontman of The Who,to play Liszt,Paul Nicholas as Richard Wagner,Beatle Ringo Starr as the Pope(!),and Yes's Rick Wakeman in the role of Thor(!!).Fiona Lewis and Little Nell of "Rocky Horror" fame are amongst the women in the composer's lovelife.Somewhere in here is a story,albeit an outrageously over-the-top one,and that's only if you can find it.
Richard Wagner(Paul Nicholas),the vampire,looking a little worse for wear.
After a swordfight with Count d'Agoult when he catches the composer in bed with his wife,Marie(Daltrey's head swings back and forth like a metronome between Lewis' pendulous breasts),Liszt finds himself trapped inside a piano with the woman,tied to the railroad tracks.He has a daughter with Lady d'Agoult,but decides to woo Princess Carolyn of St. Petersburg upon invitation instead,eloping with her,their marriage forbidden by the Pope,causing Liszt to embrace a monastic life as an abbe.Richard Wagner is the composer's friend and also a vampire(!) whose creativity is directly affected by Liszt's lifeblood,which he often sups upon.His jealousy over his friend's popularity and a friendly visit from Norse god Thor(!!) spurs him on to desperate measures,creating Franken-Hitler(!!!) to destroy the world with his electric guitar.Luckily for us,Liszt travels down from the heavens in a pipe-organ rocketship to thwart the dictator/rocker/patchwork creature's plans of global domination with laser blasts comprised of primary color schemes.I'll give you a minute here.
Liszt(Roger Daltrey),about to dance inside a mammoth pair of knickers.
A surreal cornucopia of bizzare imagery and largely horrible musical numbers,composed by Wakeman and sung by Daltrey,I'd imagine both performers have long since swept this collaboration under their creative rugs,hoping no one ever drudges the wretched thing up again.Even in 1975,if you slung a musical about famous composers together,with Frankenstein,Thor,Hitler,Superman,vampires,cigars,the papacy,Heaven,war,love,Charlie Chaplin,philosophy,sexuality...I'm pretty sure there's a kitchen sink in there somewhere too,you might lose some of your audience along the way.Yes,even the segment of moviegoers who dropped some double-dipped white blotter acid before hitting the theater,a good portion of which used to show up at my house in the early days of video with Led Zeppelin's "The Song Remains the Same" just to watch Jimmy Page's Hermit sequence and blow what little mind they had left at that point(it was more impressive at the midnight movies,mind you).
Liszt shows onstage affection for lovely lovely Ludwig Van.
In closing,you might wanna secure yourself a copy if any of this visual smorgasbord sounds interesting to you,but be warned;as musicals go,it's not "West Side Story",and this IS coming from a lifelong Who fan who has always enjoyed Rick Wakeman's film scores,Ken Russell movies,and naked broads.As much as I've always wanted to see a mash up of Frankenstein and Hitler marching through decimated cities with an electric guitar,I'm gonna go ahead and give this mish-mosh:
In my book,it's just not a musical until they drag out an enormous phallus and a kickline of concubines.
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