Throughout his career, Ken Russell alternately tickled and tried the patience of audiences and critics alike with his excesses in films like “The Devils” (1971), “Tommy” (1975), “Gothic” (1986), and “Salome’s Last Dance” (1988). (The latter was memorably reviewed in the Philadelphia Inquirer and given a rating of three question marks.)

But he had a parallel fascination with the great composers and also directed features or short subjects about Bartók, Bax, Bruckner, Delius, Elgar, Mahler, Martinu, Richard Strauss, Tchaikovsky, Vaughan Williams, and perhaps most notorious of all, Franz Liszt.

In “Lisztomania” (1975), The Who’s Roger Daltrey plays Liszt and Wagner is portrayed as a kind of zombie-Nosferatu-Frankenstein’s monster-Hitler, whose electric guitar doubles as a machine gun. (I’m not kidding.)

Occasionally, Russell also directed staged opera, including a production of Boito’s “Mefistofele,” with Faust reimagined as an aging hippie.

On Claude Debussy’s birthday, would you buy Oliver Reed as the great French composer? Why not?

You can watch “The Debussy Film” (1965) here: