Eugen Kliem

In 1957 Gustaf Gründgens staged a new production of Goethe's Faust in which he once again played Mephisto, a part he had played since 1932. The brilliant production was a huge success and ran for a couple of years. In 1959 Peter Gorski captured the performance on film in his directorial film debut. Basically it is a registration of the production, but Gorksi did manage to accentuate the details of the acting by using enough medium and close-up shots which give a view on the acting you normally would not able to see in a theater.

Part three of the trilogy, centred on the Swiss tenor August Schram, is now located in an opera house during a running performance of Donizetti's humorous melodrama "L'elisir d'amore" and furnished with a memorable cast of characters.