Directed by Ken Russell • 1975 • United Kingdom
Starring Roger Daltrey, Sara Kestelman, Paul Nicholas

Ken Russell’s run of increasingly florid portraits of classical composers reached its delirious—and divisive—apex with this outrageously surreal take on the life of nineteenth-century virtuoso Franz Liszt. Nodding to Liszt’s status as the “first pop star,” Russell casts the Who’s Roger Daltrey (fresh from their collaboration on TOMMY) as the hedonistic pianist whose dazzling performances and personal magnetism drive women to hysterics and whose rivalry with fellow composer Richard Wagner—depicted as a Nazi vampire in a Superman costume—culminates in an epic musical showdown. Look out for Ringo Starr in an audacious cameo as the Pope.