Tart
The film fictionalizes the real relationship between French sculptor Henri Gaudier and Polish writer Sophie Brzeska, twenty years his senior, who came to Paris, she says, for its “creative atmosphere.”
Irate Mother
Imprisoned Harry Lomart is a vicious, brute of a man and yet he is prepared to do his long jail term as he is confident that on his release his beautiful wife Pat will be waiting for him, but a visit from Pat brings him his worst nightmare.
Queen in Swan Lake (uncredited)
Composer, conductor and teacher Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky struggles against his homosexual tendencies by marrying, but unfortunately he chooses a wonky, nymphomaniac girl whom he cannot satisfy.
Russell's composer biopics were usually labours of love. This was the opposite: he regarded Strauss's music as "bombastic, sham and hollow", and despised the composer for claiming to be apolitical while cosying up to the Nazi regime. The film depicts Strauss in a variety of grotesquely caricatured situations: attacked by nuns after adopting Nietzsche's philosophy, he fights duels with jealous husbands, literally batters his critics into submission with his music and glorifies the women in his life and fantasies. (BFI Screenonline)
