FILM · 1972 · FRANCE
Bluebeard
19 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (19)
- #001
Writer-director Edward Dmytryk said in his autobiography that Richard Burton and Dame Elizabeth Taylor had serious drinking problems during the shoot. They were rarely sober.
- #002
Nearly all of the European actresses in this film had their speaking voices dubbed by Annie Ross of the famous jazz vocal group Lambert Hendricks & Ross.
- #003
Richard Burton once said that in this film he deliberately tried to imitate horror actor Vincent Price.
- #004
Raquel Welch has a little more than eight minutes of screen time.
- #005
This was the first film of Dennis Burgess, a former school headmaster in South Wales and a childhood friend of Richard Burton. When Burgess decided in his late forties to give up teaching and become a full-time professional actor, he immediately received the offer for this film. Although the two men had not seen each other for several years, he believed Burton arranged it.
- #006
An article in the July 5, 1972 issue of "Variety" said three versions of this film were made: a "sexploitation" version for Germany, Scandinavia and Japan; a normal version for countries such as the US, the UK, France and Italy; and "a Spanish or Puritan version for Mid-Eastern, Iron Curtain, and some Oriental (South Korea) markets."
- #007
Most prints of this film faded over time. Scream Factory's 2021 Blu-ray release (available only on their website, unlike Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other retailers) restores the film in high definition, allowing viewers to see for the first time since 1972 that Richard Burton's beard really is blue.
- #008
Dame Elizabeth Taylor celebrated her 40th birthday with a lavish party during filming in Hungary.
- #009
Richard Burton once described his co-star Joey Heatherton as follows: "Heatherton looks incredibly ordinary, which may be good for the role. She has one of those blonde, rather ordinary looks that you find one of on every corner, and I'm sure she has quite a shrewish face when insulted."
- #010
This film was released three hundred and thirteen years after Charles Perrault's French folk tale "La Barbe bleue," which shares its English title, was first published by Barbin in "Histoires ou contes du temps passé" in Paris, France, in January 1659. The name "Bluebeard" derives from the nickname of a real person, the 15th-century French nobleman Gilles de Rais (or de Retz in some accounts), who was an ally of Joan of Arc in her struggle against the English but later turned out to be a serial killer, child molester and torturer. The Bluebeard legend also inspired an opera by Bela Bartok.
- #011
Although mentioned on the film's posters, the methods by which Bluebeard, also known as Baron Kurt Von Sepper, killed his six wives and one other woman in this film were as follows: the former nun Magdalena (Raquel Welch) - drowned in a grave; Greta (Karin Schubert) - shot while playing a game; Elga (Virna Lisi) - beheaded by guillotine; Brigitte (Marilù Tolo) - drowned in a barrel of wine; Caroline (Agostina Belli) - by a falcon; and Erika (Nathalie Delon) and a prostitute (Sybil Danning) - a double murder in which both were impaled by a chandelier with large ivory tusks.
- #012
The make and model of the First World War biplane in which Baron Kurt Von Sepper is seen flying at the beginning of this film is the Soviet Polikarpov Po-2 biplane.
- #013
This was the first full English-language film for Austrian actress Sybil Danning and Italian actress Agostina Belli.
- #014
The number of wives killed by Baron Kurt Von Sepper (Richard Burton) was six, the same as the number of wives Henry VIII married.
- #015
Joey Heatherton agreed to appear nude to win her role, but the film failed and this damaged her career both on and off the screen.
- #016
Virna Lisi (Elga) had previously appeared in How to Murder Your Wife (1965).
- #017
Among Bluebeard's (Richard Burton) wives, Anne (Joey Heatherton) is the only one he kills.
- #018
Karl-Otto Alberty is dubbed by Robert Rietty.
- #019
The character Baron Kurt Von Sepper was nicknamed "Bluebeard" because of his blue-tinted, bluish beard. This trivial entry was brought to you by Captain Obvious.
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