HAMLET Movie Review

You wonder sometimes why anyone ever bothers to do movie versions of Shakespeare when there are so many purists, scholars, and fans waiting in the wings to tell the filmmaker just exactly why he's gotten it all wrong. (Kenneth Branagh tried to head critics off by making a four-hour Hamlet that included every last line, but some of us found things to complain about anyway, like the fact that it ran four hours, or Jack Lemmon.) When Laurence Olivier set out to film his version of Hamlet in 1948, he had already fallen in love with the possibilities of Shakespeare on film via his stunning 1945 Henry V. His two-and-a-half hour Hamlet is streamlined, reworked, and chock full of compromises, altered lines and missing characters. And it's great. Olivier seemed less interested in a definitive, time-capsule Hamlet than one that would be seen, felt, and considered, perhaps by a whole new audience that was never tempted to even be exposed before. We're fortunate that so many extraordinary Olivier performances have been captured on film; more fortunate still that some of the finest of them have been in films he directed: Hamlet, Henry V, Richard III. With Jean Simmons, Eileen Herlie, Basil Sydney, Norman Wooland, Felix Aylmer, Stanley Holloway, Anthony Quayle, and John Gielgud, offscreen, as the voice of the ghost. Oscars for Best Picture, Actor, Art Direction, and Costume Design, nominations for Director, Supporting Actress (Simmons), and Score (Sir William Walton).

NEXT STOP … Henry V, Chimes at Midnight, Othello (1965)

1948 153m/B GB Laurence Olivier, Basil Sydney, Felix Aylmer, Jean Simmons, Stanley Holloway, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Eileen Herlie, John Laurie, Esmond Knight, Anthony Quayle; D:Laurence Olivier; W:Alan Dent; C: Desmond Dickinson; M: William Walton; V:John Gielgud. Academy Awards ‘48: Best Actor (Olivier), Best Art Direction/Set Decoration (B & W), Best Costume Design (B & W), Best Picture; British Academy Awards ‘48: Best Film; Golden Globe Awards ‘49: Best Actor—Drama (Olivier); New York Film Critics Awards ‘48: Best Actor (Olivier); Nominations: Academy Awards ‘48: Best Director (Olivier), Best Supporting Actress (Simmons), Best Original Dramatic/Comedy Score. VHS PAR, BTV, HMV