The Music Lovers (1970)

STARS: Richard Chamberlain, Glenda Jackson, Max Adrian, Izabella Telezynska, Christopher Gable, Kenneth Colley.

DIRECTOR: Ken Russell. DURATION: 122 mins.

SYNOPSIS: Tchaikovsky is forced to marry a fan in a bid to hide his homosexuality, but is shocked to find his new wife is a nymphomaniac. His neglect of her drives the woman into a world of prostitution and insanity. The composer himself suffers, despite his musical success, and eventually dies of cholera.

RC PLAYS: Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

Tchaikovsky once said: "A creative artist leads a double life, one part of it being human, the other artistic. They do not always coincide..." And that's the aspect the writer of this movie (Melvyn Bragg) seemed to focus on the most when it came to his screenplay.

Outrageous behaviour, sexual excess and Ken Russell. In the movie world these three go together like bread and butter, so it was perhaps a natural progression that Chamberlain, in his on-going bid to lay the ghost of Dr. Kildare to rest, should work with the enfant terrible of British cinema. It has also ended up being the most famous of the actor's European films.

"To be asked to play Tchaikovsky was easily the biggest challenge of my career," revealed Richard. "I would never have been able to do so without Hamlet first (he played the Dutch prince for the Birmingham rep in 1969). The stretch into being able to play very intense material on a high emotional level was a breakthrough I made with Hamlet."

As for Russell, he says he cast Chamberlain because, "there was a certain quiet dignity about him which I felt the character needed." However, some sources, perhaps unfairly, allegedly claimed it was because the actor could mug his way through the piano-playing scenes convincingly.

On set, Richard was not all that happy. In fact, "I was three weeks into the picture before I began to feel at home," he later revealed. "I never worked so hard in my life. I was nearly dead with fatigue, and had no time off at all. The worst thing a director can do is bypass me as an actor, because I'm not so secure."

This rebuke though was certainly mild in comparison with to a later comment from Chamberlain while revealing just how difficult he found the movie. "I was determined to give up acting," he explained. "I've never been so depressed, and it took me weeks to get over it. He's (Russell) so serious and demanding that he made Glenda Jackson and me do those scenes over and over, sometimes 20 times, until we couldn't move. It was no fun. That picture nearly put me in a loony bin."

Further hints at insecurity peppered Richard's comments about The Music Lovers, such as: "Tchaikovsky was an emotional man; his mood changed in a second. I listened to a lot of his music, but it was hard to find specific things to help me with characterisation." And: "I wonder how (the film) will turn out. I just don't know if I'm any good. It's fascinating and terrifying because Ken Russell is so brilliant and you worry about not matching up to his standards." However, things can't have been that bad, after all, when shooting finally finished, Chamberlain said of the director: "I love Ken and would do anything for him."

The film itself was full of 'Ken Russellisms', which isn't a surprise considering that it was made in the middle of his most weird and wonderful period which also produced The Devils and Women in Love (for which Glenda Jackson, the actress-turned-politician, won her first Oscar).

The most famous scene is probably the one orchestrated around the 1812 Overture, although further moments of sexual frenzy ensured it of notoriety, if not critical and commercial success.

On the movie's release, any blame or plaudits were aimed squarely at Ken Russell, with the cast just about forgotten. However veteran film critic Dilys Powell did find space in her column to comment: "I can appreciate the Byronic fervour, not I fancy particularly true to its original, in Richard Chamberlain's playing." Which was quite ironic - the actor would play the poet in Lady Caroline Lamb just two years later.

Despite the number of criticisms The Music Lovers has had over the years, it is rather a memorable project which has gained a cult following in recent years.

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