Set in contemporary Paris, the film is a variation on the Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice, and is partially based on Cocteau's 1926 play of the same title.

While Heurtebise falls in love with Eurydice, Orpheus becomes obsessed with listening to the abstract poetry which only comes through the Rolls' radio, and it is revealed that the Princess is an incarnation of Death.

Orpheus enters the afterlife by donning a pair of surgical gloves and walking into a mirror, and he and Heurtebise traverse the Zone, a ruined city inhabited by people apparently unaware that they are dead.

Filming also took place in the Vallée de Chevreuse and in particular in the ruins of the Saint-Cyr military academy, bombed during the Second World War.

[5] It was on a 1,500 m2 set in the Pathé Cinémas studios on rue Francoeur in Paris that Cocteau had a sloping alley built, down which Jean Marais and François Périer ran down.

The film is noted for its wide array of practical and post-production effects,[4] notably “liquid” mirrors (represented by close-ups of a vat of mercury),[8] landscapes filmed in negative, sequences shot in reverse, a vertical shot of a plateau on the ground (when Orpheus and Heurtebise return for the second time to the Underworld), superimposition (characters appearing or disappearing, Heurtebise being able to move while seemingly standing still) and mirrors spontaneously breaking.

The Morandini Dictionary gives it a poor rating; calling it a “bizarre, artificial film, acted with execrable theatricality and terribly dated”.

The unreal invades reality -- death wanders the streets of Paris; and the afterlife, with its ritual of interrogations and negotiations, appears emphatically this-worldly.

Cocteau achieved this state of suspension of reality using entirely cinematic means.”[13] The 1950 release of Orpheus in America influenced emerging gay poets, including Robert Duncan, Jack Spicer, Frank O'Hara and Allen Ginsberg.

Films are rarely made for purely artistic reasons, experiments are discouraged, and stars as big as Marais are not cast in eccentric remakes of Greek myths.

The story in Cocteau's hands becomes unexpectedly complex; we see that it is not simply about love, death and jealousy, but also about how art can seduce the artist away from ordinary human concerns”.

Francesca Zambello directed the premiere, and the production, closely based on the imagery of the film, was by frequent Glass collaborator Robert Israel.

Baritone Eugene Perry originated the role of Orphée, with Wendy Hill as the Princess, Richard Fracker as Heurtebise, and Elizabeth Futral as Eurydice.