There's a musical thread to this week's DVD column to mark the 40th anniversary of the release of Randal Kleiser's Grease (1978), which is back in cinemas and on disc to give a new generation the chance to get to know the students of Rydell High. Given that James Whale's The Old Dark House (1932) also returns to the big screen from Friday, we should also check out Jim Sharman's The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), as well as a couple more modern musical classics, a timeless opera and a disappointing documentary about a rock legend.

Set some time in the 1950s, Grease was the first hit Broadway musical to be composed entirely on a guitar. It was conceived by unemployed actor Jim Jacobs and bra salesman Warren Casey at a party and opened with an amateur cast at the Kingston Mines Theatre, a former Chicago tram shed, in February 1971. Originally designed to run for just two weekends, it was picked up by New York producers Kenneth Waissmann and Maxine Fox and premiered at the off-Broadway Eden Theatre the following year.

The reviews were lukewarm, but word of mouth ensured Grease's success and it was nominated for seven Tonys. Ultimately, it would run for 3,388 performances and, in 1979, it became the longest-running show in Broadway history.

Ralph Bakshi was the first to secure the film rights. But when his proposed animated version fell through, producer Alan Carr acquired the show for $200,000 in 1976. Hiw plan to cast Henry Winkler as Danny Zucco came to nothing, however, as Winkler was keen to avoid typecasting after playing The Fonz in Happy Days, and the role passed to John Travolta, who had played Doody in a touring production. By contrast, Olivia Newton John was always the first choice for Sandy, although director Randal Kleiser - who was advised to quit the picture by Robert Wise, for being afforded insufficient rehearsal time - also scouted Carrie Fisher in case the Anglo-Australian's screen test proved unsatisfactory. 

Working with Bronte Woodward, Carr moved the setting from the city to the suburbs and interpolated some of his own schoolboy memories, as well as toning down the language and immorality. He also dropped such show favourites as `Freddy, My Love', `Magic Changes' and `It's Raining on Prom Night' and commissioned new songs from Barry Gibb (`Grease') and John Farrar (`Hopelessly Devoted to You' and `You're the One That I Want'), as well as contributing `Sandy' himself.

However, the new tunes felt more like 70s pop than 50s pastiche and Patricia Birch's energetic choreography felt similarly anachronistic. Indeed, the picture seemed to owe more to George Lucas's American Graffiti (1973) and Happy Days than the AIP drive-in fodder that had inspired Jacobs and Casey, while the inclusion of such old-time stalwarts as Joan Blondell, Eve Arden, Sid Caesar and Frankie Avalon only reinforced the feel of manufactured nostalgia by proxy, which was designed to appeal to those who hadn't personally experienced the birth of rock`n'roll.

The critics picked up on this calculation and castigated the picture for smoothing away the original's rough edges in the name of family entertainment. But the indifferent notices proved an irrelevance, as the chart success of `You're the One That I Want' and `Summer Nights' guaranteed Grease's enthusiastic reception, especially as screen footage was culled for ready-made pop videos for TV promotion. Consequently, the soundtrack album went on to spend 12 of its 39 weeks on the Billboard chart at No.1, while the thoroughly enjoyable movie grossed $153,097,492 on its first run - making it Paramount's biggest hit to date and the most successful screen musical of all time.

Although the 1982 sequel fared less well, Grease suggested to Hollywood that teenpix could save the musical and Alan Parker's Fame (1980), Herbert Ross's Footloose (1983), Adrian Lyne's Flashdance (1984) and Emile Ardolino's Dirty Dancing (1987) all followed. But their lack of originality and the fact that these were essentially dramas with musical interludes - like John Badham's Saturday Night Fever (1977) before them - meant that they made a greater contribution to the evolution of the pop promo than the preservation of a declining genre.

Were it not for Tim Deegan, Denise Borden, Louis Farese, Bill O'Brien and Dori Hartley, The Rocky Horror Picture Show would have sunk without trace. Faced with a critical and commercial catastrophe in the States, Fox was planning to consign Richard O'Brien's B-movie homage to video when Deegan persuaded Borden to screen the film as a midnite matinee at the Waverly Theatre in Greenwich Village. But what turned a curio into a cult was Farese's ad-libbed interaction with the dialogue and O'Brien and Hartley's decision to attend screenings in character costume. Rocky, thus, became a refuge for outsiders and exhibitionists, who identified with the movie's motto `Don't Dream It, Be It', and it's been a countercultural phenomenon ever since.

The road to cultdom began at the 60-seater Theatre Upstairs at London's Royal Court, where The Rocky Horror Show opened in June 1973. It was the brainchild of struggling actor Richard O'Brien, who played Riff Raff, as well as writing the scenario and score. But much credit should also go to Richard Hartley - who helped O'Brien produce a song demo and persuaded the Court to mount the production - and director Jim Sharman and designer Brian Thomson, who were to be largely responsible for the look of both the stage and screen incarnations.

Producer Michael White and pop maverick Jonathan King also merit mention for respectively providing half of the £2,000 budget and for releasing a cast album that prompted US record mogul Lou Adler to open the show at the Roxy in Los Angeles. This, in turn, led to a movie deal with Fox, and a disastrous 45-show engagement at the Belasco Theatre in New York. But there was little love lost between the various protagonists, as each was keen to secure his own slice of the kudos for Rocky's success. Yet, to most fans, the picture's appeal lies in O'Brien's score and Tim Curry's bravura performance as Frank N Furter, a transvestite from the planet Transexual in the galaxy of Transylvania, whose encounter with Brad Majors (Barry Bostwick) and his fiancée, Janet Weiss (Susan Sarandon), culminates in his own destruction and that of his creation, Rocky Horror (Peter Hinwood), by his hunchbacked henchman, Riff Raff (Richard O'Brien), and his incestuous sister, Magenta (Patricia Quinn).

Rejecting a substantial budget and the prospect of Mick Jagger playing Frank, Sharman remained largely loyal to the original cast and shot the film for $1 million over eight weeks at the old Hammer studios at Bray and the nearby Gothic pile, Oakley Court. However, Fox nearly cancelled the project at the eleventh hour and few were surprised when it opened to disastrous Stateside reviews. But the British press was less squeamish about Rocky's blend of audiovisual pastiche and good honest smut and it was soon hailed as a progenitor of punk. But it was the late-night screenings at arthouses, grindhouses and campuses across America that rescued it from obscurity - although the Waverly sequence in Fame (1980) did no harm, either.

The press release called Rocky `an outrageous assemblage of the most stereo-typed science fiction movies, Marvel comics, Frankie Avalon/Annette Funicello outings and rock'n'roll of every vintage' and Sharman was very conscious of these origins. `Being surrounded by film mythology,' he revealed, `the theatre version was very filmatic, as the film is very theatrical, although I've tried to avoid making a sort of filmed stage play.' 

But Rocky is now less of a movie than a karaoke experience. Screenings are tantamount to quasi-religious rituals, in which audience participation is regimented by orthodox quips and actions - although local variations do apply and new crazes are communicated by The Transylvanian newsletter.

Such mania has seen Rocky gross over $135 million. But even its cast members (many of whom prefer the vitality and viscerality of the stage original) are somewhat at a loss to explain its enduring appeal. A key factor, however, is the subtext, which revolves around notions of stardom and MGM's attitude to its troubled creation, Judy Garland. Indeed, Sharman had even planned to shoot the action up to Frank's entrance in Wizard of Oz monochrome. But he had to content himself with the Kansas tactic of placing the alien retinue among the residents of Denton, as the ploy proved too expensive. However, the conceit can now be viewed among the extras on the 25th Anniversary DVD.

Strictly speaking, Evita (1996) isn't a musical. According to the theorists, musicals are stories with songs rather than sung stories. But while previous drafts of the screenplay contained passages of dialogue, director Alan Parker honoured Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber's original intentions and produced an opera - not a rock opera - that owed as much to the 1976 concept album as the various stage shows that followed.

Rice conceived the project after a visit to Argentina in 1974 and he based his lyrics on Mary Main's biography, Evita: The Woman with the Whip, which has since been challenged for its shaky facts and propagandist slant. Lloyd Webber concurred in this depiction of Eva Duarte, however, dubbing her 'easily the most unpleasant character about whom I have written, except perhaps Peron himself'. But Parker sought more balance, casting Evita somewhere between the saint claimed by the Peronistas and the demon whore of her enemies.

With Julie Covington's recording of `Don't Cry for Me Argentina' reaching No.1 in the UK charts, the album went gold. However, Elaine Paige had assumed the role by the time Hal Prince opened the £400,000 West End adaptation at the Prince Edward Theatre in June 1978. Patti Lupone played Evita at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion in Los Angeles, before the production transferred to Broadway for a run of 1,567 performances.

Parker was the first to be offered the movie. But he didn't want to do another musical after Fame and, so, a 15-year cycle of rumour, lobbying and cancellation began that saw Ken Russell, Herbert Ross, Alan J. Pakula, Hector Babenco, Franco Zeffirelli, Francis Ford Coppola, Richard Attenborough, Michael Cimino, Glenn Gordon Caron and Oliver Stone all being linked with the project. Russell and Stone came closest to realising their visions, with Paige and Liza Minnelli in the running for the lead in 1982 and Meryl Streep and Michelle Pfeiffer being the favourites in 1993. But, along the way, Patti Lupone, Charo, Raquel Welch, Ann-Margret, Bette Midler, Diane Keaton, Barbra Streisand, Kim Wilde, Pia Zadora, Olivia Newton-John, Cyndi Lauper, Gloria Estefan, Mariah Carey, Maria Conchita Alonso and Glenn Close were all slated to headline, while Barry Gibb, John Travolta, Elton John, Meat Loaf, Sylvester Stallone, Elliot Gould, Jeremy Irons and Raul Julia were cited for Che and Peron. 

Eventually, Madonna - who had previously planned a remake of Josef von Sternberg's The Blue Angel (1930) with Parker - won the day with a frank letter and a powerhouse video, while Antonio Banderas and Jonathan Pryce (who had just won a Tony for Miss Saigon) were cast as her co-stars. However, it's now impossible to imagine anyone else playing Evita. In addition to the women's pronounced physical resemblance, Madonna's controversial career had provoked equally polarised reactions.

Moreover, without her kudos, Parker would never have been allowed to shoot at the Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires for the balcony sequence that provided the film's emotional core. Furthermore, her rendition of `You Must Love Me' - in which Evita pleads for reassurance that she means more to Peron than the adoration of the masses - helped Rice and Lloyd Webber land their Oscars for Best Song - even though Madonna herself was shamefully snubbed for Best Actress, having won a Golden Globe.

Writers' Guild rules meant that Parker had to share the screenwriting credit with Oliver Stone, even though he never saw his script. In all, he made 146 changes to the score and lyrics, most notably switching `Another Suitcase in Another Hall' to Evita from Peron's mistress and restoring `The Lady's Got Potential' from the album. But he retained Rice's insight and wit in creating a self-reflexive musical variation on Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941), in which Che goes in search of the reasons why an opportunist's good intentions were corrupted by celebrity, piety and autocratic arrogance and discovers that her Rosebud was the humiliation of being excluded from her father's funeral by his bourgeois family.

The reviews were mixed, with some criticising Parker for his impartial stance. But such ambiguity only enhances the film's intellectual and musical appeal. Evita's life was a melodrama played against a setting that consciously evoked the grandiose theatricality of fascist Europe. Thus, the shifts between heightened reality and gritty naturalism were perfectly pitched, most notably during editor Gerry Hambling's exemplary montages for `A New Argentina', `The Rainbow Tour' and `And the Money Kept Rolling In (And Out)', which gave the action impetus without distracting from the  socio-political cut and thrust of the lyrics.

Much was made of the fact that Madonna wore a record 85 costumes and sported 39 hats, 45 pairs of shoes, 56 pairs of earrings and 42 hairstyles. But such statistics only reinforced the picture's thesis on fame and the public's willingness to believe that an icon is as honest and philanthropic as they are charismatic and photogenic. This approach to the cult of personality and the relationship between  rulers and the ruled brought a new thematic maturity to the musical that challenged its escapist rationale. Sadly, the genre has failed to follow Evita's lead over the ensuing decade and, consequently, it remains something of a cultural irrelevance.

Bob Fosse's 1975 stage version of Chicago perished in the shadow of Michael Bennett's A Chorus Line. It ran for a respectable 898 performances. But the reviews were mixed and it failed to convert any of its 11 Tony nominations, as Bennett's show won nine. However, Richard Attenborough's 1985 movie take on A Chorus Line proved a commercial and critical calamity, while Chicago went on to enjoy a new lease of Broadway life in 1996, when it not only won six Tonys, but also embarked upon a record-breaking run that is currently heading towards 4,000 performances. Moreover, Rob Marshall's screen adaptation landed six Oscars from 13 nominations and has since grossed over $300,000,000 from a $45 million budget.

This study of celebrity and the public's complicity in its bestowal started as a George Abbott stage drama in 1926, with Maurine Dallas Watkins basing the action on her Chicago Tribune coverage of the jazz slayings committed by cabaret singer Belva Gaertner and Beulah Annan, the Windy City's `prettiest prisoner', who was acquitted of shooting her lover in the back thanks to a media frenzy and the artful pleading of attorney, W.W. O'Brien.

Cecil B. DeMille produced a silent variation of Chicago in 1927, with Phyllis Haver in the Annan role that Ginger Rogers assumed for William Wellman's Roxie Hart (1942). But the born-again Watkins came to despise this glamorisation of such tawdry events and proceeded to frustrate Gwen Verdon's bid to musicalise the play up to her death in 1969. Eventually, Verdon persuaded Fosse to devise a show with his Cabaret composers, John Kander and Fred Ebb. But he suffered a massive heart attack during rehearsals and returned to impose a darker mood after scrapping 60% of the material following lacklustre tryouts in Philadelphia.

Keen to explore the concept that life had become a three-ring circus, in which key institutions like the law and the press were tantamount to cheap entertainments, Fosse set the action on a vaudeville stage and mounted the numbers as performance pieces that commented on the narrative rather than being integral to it. Moreover, he drew on his childhood memories of Minsky's Burlesque to stage some routines in the style of such showbiz legends as Bert Williams, Helen Morgan, Sophie Tucker and Eddie Cantor, while others were inspired by ventriloquist, clown and drag acts and such contemporary dance crazes as the Charleston, the shimmy and the black bottom.

But such variety schtick led to accusations of excessive cynicism and theatrical decadence and much of it was stripped away by Walter Bobbie for his leaner, meaner, sexier revival, which he insisted was no longer a satire, but a documentary, thanks to the O.J. Simpson trial. The mean spirit and sardonic wit that had riled Americans faced with the shame of Watergate and capitulation in Vietnam now chimed in with the public appetite for celebrity scandal, which was shamelessly  exacerbated by the yellow press and sensationalist teleplays.

However, no one seemed keen to make Chigaco the movie. Liza Minnelli had been mentioned in the mid-70s and Fosse had been planning talks with Madonna when he died in 1987. But Baz Luhrmann, Herbert Ross, Stanley Donen and Milos Forman all refused a project, which then boasted a screenplay by Larry Gelbart and Goldie Hawn and Madonna as Roxie and Velma. Gelbart was replaced by Wendy Wasserstein when Nicholas Hytner agreed to direct. But he departed amid press speculation that Charlize Theron and Nicole Kidman were set for the female leads, while John Travolta, Rupert Everett and Kevin Kline were competing for the role of Billy Flynn.

A futher round of rumours followed Marshall's appointment. Catherine Zeta Jones was always his first choice for Velma, but Gwyneth Paltrow, Cameron Diaz, Toni Collette, Milla Jovovich, Marisa Tomei and Angelina Jolie were all considered before Renée Zellwegger was selected for Roxie, despite her admission that she didn't understand the shifts between stylised reality and fantastical escapism in Bill Condon's scenario. Hugh Jackman, John Cusack and Kevin Spacey, Kathy Bates and Whoopi Goldberg, and Britney Spears were also mooted before Richard Gere, Queen Latifah and Lucy Liu were respectively cast as Billy, Mama Morton and Kitty.

Meanwhile, Marshall and Condon had rethought the libretto to accommodate the MTV generation's scepticism about characters bursting into song in supposedly everyday situations. Lars von Trier's Dancer in the Dark (1999) had shown that musical routines could be presented as interior monologues and, thus, they set the numbers in Roxie's imagination, in order to exploit her celebrity-fixated conviction that her life was one big song and dance. Marshall further borrowed von Trier's tactic of using random sounds to motivate the escapist shifts - although he did devise some neat visual cues of his own and made shrewd use of blatant symbolism to heighten the corniness of the starstruck contexts.

Marshall had to drop six songs to make the new structure work. But while stage favourites like `Class' were lost, he atoned with bravura renditions of `All That Jazz', `We Reached for the Gun' and `Razzle Dazzle', while `All He Cares About' and `Funny Honey' neatly alluded to the Ziegfeld Follies and Show Boat. With its CGI-enhanced 1920s street scenes evoking the paintings of Reginald Marsh and the photography of Brassaï, Chicago was sold as a biting allegory on millennial morality. But it's intriguing to note that this self-proclaimed champion of the musical eschewed all mention of song and dance in its trailer. The genre was still clearly considered a risky curio rather than the box-office banker it had once been.

Made for Swedish television to mark the 50th anniversary of the national radio service, Ingmar Bergman's The Magic Flute (1975) is widely regarded as one of the finest examples of filmed opera. Having been entranced as a 12 year-old by the fantasia composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and librettist Emanuel Schikaneder, Bergman was determined to shoot in Stockholm's Drottningholm Palace Theatre in order to recreate the sense of occasion and intimacy that the first audience would have experienced in Vienna's Theater auf der Wieden in 1791. However, the Drottningholm management insisted that the theatre couldn't accommodate a film crew. So, Bergman recreated the entire auditorium in a studio at the Swedish Film Institute, with the assistance of production designer, Henny Noremark.

He also had a hands-on role in the recording of the soundtrack in a disused circus building. A gifted musician who had once suggested that he might have become a conductor if he hadn't discovered cinema, Bergman hired Eric Ericson and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra to ensure that Swedish television's first stereophonic production would not only sound lustrous, but would also have a spatial dimensionality that would place the viewer at the very heart of the action. This meant putting the cast through numerous retakes to ensure that their performances were as precise as their lip-synching to the playback. Furthermore, Bergman and cinematographer Sven Nykvist had problems adapting to TV's boxy 1.33:1 aspect ratio. But the end result is unquestionably joyous, even though it sometimes strains to be as accessible and cinematic as Bergman had hoped.

The overture segment is a case in point, as the camera fixes on the face of young Helene Friberg, as she looks around the theatre in wide-eyed anticipation. But Bergman is not content with capturing her childlike wonder and begins cross-cutting between close-ups of the other audience members, whose ages and ethnicities have been consciously chosen to reinforce Bergman's contention that opera is for everyone. 

Eventually, Act One begins with Prince Tamino (Josef Köstlinger) being chased by a dragon. He pleads with the gods for deliverance and three servants of the Queen of the Night (Britt-Marie Aruhn, Kirsten Vaupel and Birgitta Smiding) appear to vanquish the beast. Each woman is smitten with Tamino and tries to persuade the others to leave her alone with him while he sleeps. However, he wakes alone and jumps to the conclusion that he owes his life to Papageno the bird catcher (Håkan Hagegård). A lonely man who commands little respect, Papageno takes the credit, only for the three maidens to return and muzzle him to prevent him telling more lies.

Seeing Tamino awake, the attendants show him a locket containing a portrait of Princess Pamina (Irma Urrila) and he immediately falls in love with her. They also inform him that she has been abducted by the evil sorcerer, Sarastro (Ulrik Cold), and his band of slaves, led by Monostatos (Ragnar Ulfung). The Queen of the Night (Birgit Nordin) arrives to offer Tamino her daughter's hand in marriage if he can rescue her. He is also presented with a magic flute that has the power to turn sorrow into joy, while Papageno is entrusted with a set of enchanted bells that will help protect them.

As the new friends set off under the guidance of three sprites (Urban Malmberg, Ansgar Krook and Erland von Heijne), Pamina laments her fate in Sarastro's palace. However, Papageno succeeds in tracking her down and reassures her that help is on its way. She recognises his loneliness and they duet about the sweet agonies of love. Meanwhile, Tamino has reached the palace and been told by a holy man (Erik Saedén) that Sarastro is much misunderstood and that the Queen of the Night is not to be trusted.

Tamino plays his flute and all the animals of the forest come to listen to him. He pauses when he hears Papageno's panpipes, but he is forced to stop playing when Monostatos and his cohorts swoop to recapture them. Papageno plays his magic bells and the slaves are so intoxicated by the sound that they dance themselves off the stage. However, Sarastro is made of sterner stuff and he demands to know why Pamina keeps trying to escape. She insists that Monostatos has tried to molest her, but Sarastro suggests that it would be folly to leave his court, as the Queen of the Night is more interested in exercising her own power than in seeking her daughter's happiness.

At that moment, Monostatos enters with the captured Tamino. He demands a reward from Sarastro, only to be punished for his lustful attitude towards Pamina. The sorcerer is taken aback when Tamino and Pamina embrace and warns the prince that he will have to complete a series of tasks to prove himself worthy of her love. Two priests from the temple (Gösta Prüzelius and Ulf Johanson) tell the pair that they can become like gods if they display sufficient virtue.

Following a quick peak behind the scenes to show how the cast spends the interval, Act Two opens with Sarastro and the council of priests invoking the spirits of Isis and Osiris to protect Tamino and Pamina during their ordeals. Two of the priests warn Tamino and Papageno that they are about to be tempted by the Queen of the Night's maidservants and they are urged to remain silent during their onslaught. Papageno cannot hold his tongue and Tamino has to reprimand him. But they succeed in resisting the siren song and await their next test.

Meanwhile, Monostatos finds Pamina sleeping in the garden. He sits beside her and runs his hands over the body. But, as he is about to kiss her, the Queen of the Night appears and wakes Pamina in order to explain that Sarastro is her father and she gives her a dagger to kill him. Terrified by the way in which her mother's face ages during her aria, Pamina is faced with the dreadful prospect of being disowned if she fails. However, Sarastro enters to reassure her that he does not blame her mother for her plotting and promises that cruelty and revenge have no place in his domain.

The priests lead Tamino and Papageno into a crypt and remind them of their obligation to remain silent. However, the bird catcher is thirsty and his complaints reach the ears of Papagena (Elisabeth Erikson), who dons the guise of an old crone in order to flirt with him. He plays his bells and sings for her and she removes her wig and false teeth to reveal herself in all her beauty and he is besotted. Left along, Tamino plays the flute and is overjoyed to see Pamina listening to him. But he remembers his oath of silence and turns away from her. She sings a lament at losing his love and he is crushed, as she wanders away in distress.

As snow starts to fall and the three sprites fly over the garden in a hot air balloon, Pamina contemplates suicide against the railings of a wrought iron fence. She is prevented from doing so by the cherubs, who reassure her of Tamino's love and she flies away with them. While they are enjoying a snowball fight in the woods, however, the boys notice Papageno trying to summon Papagena with his pipes. When she fails to come, he throws a noose over the branch of a tree and prepares to hang himself. But the sprites pelt him with snow and advise him to play his magic bells. They start to chime by themselves and he is delighted when Papagena appears and they sing their famous stuttering duet, as they remove their winter weeds and usher in the spring.

Back in the depths of the palace, the priests commend Tamino on his fortitude. A pair of sentries with flaming plumed helmets (Hans Johansson and Jerker Arvidson) escort him to a wall to recite the promises that Isis and Osiris make to those who overcome their fear of death. He claims he is ready to face any ordeal and is joined by Pamina, who presents him with his flute. Together they pass unharmed through chambers of fire and water and the priests welcome them into the temple. As they are about to celebrate, however, Monostatos strides in to demand that the Queen of the Night keeps her promise to betroth him to Pamina. But, as she rallies her forces to lay waste to the palace, Sarastro draws his sword to challenge her and her attack is repelled. He declares that the light has triumphed over darkness to hail a new age of wisdom and kinship and the curtain falls on Tamino and Pamina embracing and Papageno and Papagena dancing with their brood of children.

At times dazzling, at others self-indulgent, this rather begs the old gag about something not needing fixing `if it ain't baroque'. The 16mm visuals are simply gorgeous, with Nykvist's use of lighting being particularly beguiling, especially during the scenes featuring the Queen of the Night, when he seems to drain the frame of colour. Henny Noremark's sets and bits of mechanical stagecraft are also exceptional, while the costumes he designed with Karin Erskine thoroughly merited their Oscar nomination. Singing a libretto translated into Swedish by poet Alf Henrikson, the leads are also memorable, with Håkan Hagegård twinkling as Papageno, Josef Köstlinger and Irma Urrila mining the depths of despair and passion as Tamino and Pamina, and Birgit Nordin seething with vengeful rage as the latter's black-clad mother. Mercifully, Bergman opted not to overdo the blackface for Ragnar Utlfung's Monostatos. But this is one of the details that dates the production.

At times, Bergman's staging seems to be channelling Fritz Lang's Die Niebelungen (1924). But there's also a whiff of Jean Cocteau's La Belle et la Bête (1946) during the passage through the chambers of fire and water, as faceless torsos gyrate in agony in the flames and arms reach up from the depths. However, Bergman often appears to be in playful mood, as he places key lyrics within the mise-en-scène and positions faces within the frame to evoke films as different as Smiles of a Summer Night (1955), The Seventh Seal (1957), The Virgin Spring (1960), The Silence (1963), Persona (1966), Hour of the Wolf (1968) and Cries and Whispers (1972). Indeed, one can imagine Lasse Hallström furiously scribbling down notes for future ABBA videos.

Yet, there's a curious lack of smoothness about Siv Lundgren's editing, while the frequent cutaways to Helene Friberg to remind us of the preposterous narrative's fairytale nature eventually become irksome. The interval antics are also a bit hit-and-miss, with Ulric Cold perusing the score of Richard Wagner's Parsifal, while one of the slave boys reads a comic. Elsewhere, the three nocturnal harbingers have a crafty cigarette beneath a No Smoking sign, while Urrila beats Köstlinger at chess. Such forced jollity finds echo in the cornball moment in which the locket image of Pamina comes to life in Tamino's hand. But these are essentially quibbles, as few have since found more engaging in ways in which to cinematicise opera, including Kenneth Branagh, whose 2006 version of Mozart's masterpiece boasted a scenario by Stephen Fry.

Finally, we change tack completely, with a little Slowhand.

Producer and occasional director Lili Fini Zanuck got to know Eric Clapton when he composed the score for her debut turn behind the camera, Rush (1991). They have been good friends ever since and that bond prevents Zanuck from presenting an in-depth analysis of the enduring guitar legend in Eric Clapton: A Life in 12 Bars, as she readily accepts his assertion that much of the music he produced after the Derek and the Dominoes album, Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs (1970), is unworthy of consideration because he can hear how drunk he was when he recorded it. Such an admission is fascinating and Zanuck and Clapton address the alcoholism that almost destroyed his career with admirably unflinching honesty. But to dismiss so many songs that make up Clapton's solo canon short-changes the audience and inevitably means that Zanuck is only telling a fraction of what could have been the definitive story.

Born in Surrey on 30 March 1945, Eric Clapton was raised by his grandmother, Rose, and her second husband Jack Clapp. According to his Aunt Sylvia, he long believed his mother, Patricia, was actually his sister and was deeply hurt as a nine year-old when she paid a visit with her second family and made it clear that she had no maternal feelings towards him. Fortunately, he had already discovered the blues, thanks to Uncle Mac playing Muddy Waters's My Life Is Ruined' on his BBC radio show, and Clapton dropped out of the Kingston School of Art to join the likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Brian Jones at the famous Marquee Club.

He was 17 when Oxford sculptor and pianist Ben Palmer advertised for a guitarist to join The Roosters in 1963 and he made such an immediate impact that he was snapped up by The Yardbirds just eight months later. Taking his music as seriously as his duty to promote the black bluesmen who had inspired him, Clapton was horrified to see the way the fans screamed during The Beatles Christmas Show at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1964 and quit the band when they recorded the decidedly poppy `For Your Love' in March 1965. His tenure with John Mayall and The Bluesbreakers proved equally short, although it allowed him to widen his musical horizons when he became aware of world music stars like shehnai player Bismillah Khan while staying with Palmer and Mayall.

Switching to a 1960 Les Paul Gibson Standard guitar and a Marshall amplifier, Clapton developed a sound that openly astonished Bob Dylan (as seen in a clip from DA Pennebaker's 1965 documentary, Don't Look Back) and earned him a devoted following who fervently believed that `Clapton is God'. His reputation burgeoned further when he formed Cream with Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker and scored a hit with `I Feel Free' in July 1966. This brought him to the attention of American guitarist Jimi Hendrix and a bromance developed after their first meeting at the Bag o' Nails in September.

While Cream launched the brief vogue for supergroups, Clapton began to find Bruce and Baker hard work and the trio parted following a memorable farewell concert at the Royal Albert Hall in August 1968. Clapton was far from idle, however, as he guested on Aretha Franklin's `Good to Me As I Am to You', jammed with BB King, sat behind John Lennon during the live transmission of `All You Need Is Love' and, at George Harrison's invitation, played a seminal solo on the White Album track, `While My Guitar Gently Weeps'. As girlfriend Charlotte Martin recalls, however, these sessions at Abbey Road proved significant for another reason, as Clapton fell head over heels with Harrison's model wife, Pattie Boyd.

Having moved to Hurtwood Edge to be closer to the Harrisons in Esher, Clapton wrote `In the Presence of the Lord' for Boyd and performed it with new band Blind Faith during a concert in Hyde Park in July 1969. Despite finding it difficult to express intimate emotions, he also sent Boyd a long love letter. Moreover, having helped Harrison record his first solo album, All Things Must Pass, Clapton poured out his feelings for Boyd in `Layla', which he recorded with his new outfit, Derek and the Dominoes. Resorting to cocaine and heroin to help him cope with his overwhelming passion, Clapton succeeded in wearing Boyd down and they slept together, only to bump into Harrison at a party that night, where he gave Boyd an ultimatum before taking her home.

Once again using songs like `Thorn Tree in the Garden' to explore his feelings, Clapton went to record at Criteria studios in Miami in August 1970, where he fell under the influence of ace guitarist Duane Allman. Returning to London, he played the Layla album to Boyd, who was aghast because she thought everyone would know about their affair. Crushed by her rejection, Clapton lost Jimi Hendrix and Jack Clapp within a few days of each other and he recalls cursing them for leaving him alone when he most needed them. Confiding in Rolling Stone's Steve Turner that he had a death wish, Clapton embarked upon a lost weekend that ended with a comeback concert at the Rainbow Theatre in January 1973. As James Oldaker remembers, however, the tour the following year was a nightmare, with a drunken Clapton often raving at the audience from the stage.

Zanuck flashes back at this point to Clapton vowing never to trust anyone again after a disastrous visit to his mother on a military base in Germany. He was certainly alone at this juncture, as a racist tirade upset his musical heroes, while (as interview clips show) he was often out of it on drink and drugs. His luck changed, however, when Boyd left Harrison and threw herself into hauling Clapton back from the brink. But Zanuck ducks the next part of the story, as Clapton and Boyd married and he tried to rebuild his career. A flash montage of album covers takes the story to the release of the Journeyman album in 1989, by which time Clapton had broken up with Boyd, had a daughter, Ruth, with AIR studio manager Yvonne Kelly and a son, Conor, with Italian model Lory Del Santo. He had also been to rehab and was devoting himself to fatherhood when Conor was killed in a fall out of a 53rd floor window in New York and Clapton channelled his grief into `Tears in Heaven'.

Fifteen years on, Clapton is a changed man. He and wife Mella McEnery have three daughters, Julie, Ella and Sophie, and he now considers his addiction centre in Antigua to be more important than his music. Indeed, he auctioned 100 guitars to raise funds for the charity and Palmer commends his friend for having turned his life around and suggests that it takes a remarkably strong personality to have withstood so much and come out the other side in such good health and with such a positive attitude. 

Capably edited by Chris King, this is worth seeing just for the chronicle of Clapton's changing hairstyles. But, by relating too many oft-told tales rather than delving into dark recesses, Zanuck allows a golden opportunity to slip through her fingers. Keeping all interviewees, including Clapton himself, off camera neatly dispenses with the age-old problem of how to make talking-heads look as interesting as their revelations. However, the musical choices feel overly safe, while Zanuck fails to press Clapton on his influences and technique, let alone on why he found it so hard to be part of a group during the 1960s and how it feels to regard much of one's revered musical legacy as the footlings of an unhappy drunk.

As is often the case in such retrospectives, it might have been nice to have some objective critical assessment of Clapton's achievement. But this feels too much like a favour for an introverted and often inarticulate friend to risk anything other than hazy memories and admiring musings. Consequently, it falls well short of the standards set by Martin Scorsese's Bob Dylan: No Direction Home (2005) and George Harrison: Living in the Material World (2011), and Peter Bogdanovich's Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers: Runnin' Down a Dream (2007).