Plot so thin, it passes unnoticed.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

This was one of the most unforgettable films I saw as a child, I never had the opportunity to see it again until 50 years later, and it remains a lasting impact. Its weaknesses are admitted, it's more like a play than a film, (although some cinematic tricks occur as positive surprises,) the acting is not very brilliant but rather stiff, the camera moves as little as possible; but against all these foibles you have the overwhelmingly beautiful and brilliant story and play, the virtuoso dialogue all the way, and above all, the music, the dances and the poetry. Ben Hecht clearly conceived the idea inspired by the fate of Nijinsky, who was disabled as a schizophrenic from the first world war till after the second, and the real theme of the film is the freedom of artistic madness at its most exuberant and creative. Michael Chekhov sometimes tediously dominates long scenes of the film as the sore tried impresario of infinite tribulations who nevertheless is wholeheartedly sympathetic but outflanked by the indomitable realist of long and hard experience, Judith Anderson, who is magnificent in every scene; while the focus of the drama is the dancer's genius and the difficulty of handling it, or rather, subjecting it to discipline, because it's so totally beyond control that it really can't be disciplined, only at best directed in a creative vein. Powell-Pressburger's classic "The Red Shoes" a few years later would have been unthinkable without this for a road mark, and it must remain for always one of the most important and innovative ballet films ever made, especially for its delicate treatment of the difficult subject of genius. The film gains by seeing it a number of times, at first sight its depth and ingenuity is not obvious, but as you sink into it you never reach the bottom. This is an ingenious film about the trickiness of genius.

When my mother took me to see this film in 1946 at the Leland Theater in Taft, Texas, I was 7 years old. This movie set a standard ,for me,of motion picture excellence and expectation that has never wavered. I am not saying that this is the greatest movie ever made, I am just expressing or rather trying to convey the power of this film over the rather naive mind of a young boy. Judith Anderson became my role model of female intuition and cohesiveness. Every time I watch a movie (and I have watched literally thousands over the years), I communicate with her and wait for her voice to put it into perspective. She was a remarkable actress whose theatrical actions were a combination of dance and music that revealed hidden truths and subtle whispers about life, death and our invisible role within it.

18 years before Susan Sontag defined "camp" in her famous 1964 essay, Ben Hecht fully realized its on screen possibilities with his "The Spectre and the Rose." Words fail entirely to capture the fruity tongue in cheek ineptitude here--it must be seen to be believed.Judith Anderson, who looks like a fortune teller for a rural traveling carnival, is worth the whole price of admission. She utters lines like: "We've eaten caviar and we've eaten sawdust," but, oops, that was actually Joan Crawford's line from "Berserk," (which is, in many ways, cut from the same cloth.)Well, anyway, you get the point.

This Ben Hecht film is one-of- a-kind. it's about the ballet world and might remind you a bit of The Red Shoes on a superficial level. However this film is quite different-more perverse and it contains some REALLY erotic dialogue between the young lovers--the wonderful Ivan Kirov and Viola Essen. Judith Anderson, Michael Chekhov and Lionel Stander are also superb. Ben Hecht wrote, produced and directed this film--too bad he didn't attempt more directing!! A must-see!