24. An American in Paris (1951)

Plot Intro

In post-war Paris, an American World War II veteran, Jerry Mulligan (Gene Kelly) is now trying to make his way as a penniless but enthusiastic painter. Despite the attentions of a rich patron, Milo Roberts (Nina Foch), he falls in love with a perfume salesgirl, Lise (Leslie Caron). Unfortunately, Lise is already about to be engaged to Mulligan’s close friend, Henri (Georges Guetary), but the two conduct a relationship anyway. Will Jerry discover the truth? Whom will Lise choose to marry? Will she do anything about her over-sized teeth?

Doug says...

We’ve hit 1951 and we’re back in colour! It’s been twelve years since Gone With The Wind first brought vibrant colour to our screens, and then war immediately hit and after that one year of colour we were plunged back into black and white. So it’s more than pleasant to see some colour onscreen, and you can see the producers have gone into it with the opinion that nothing is too bright or loud. The result is near-luminous costumes, visually fabulous backdrops and a sense of vitality and liveliness that carries through the whole film. 

The best thing about this film is the background actors. While the three central characters sing and dance fairly forgettable tunes, the ‘French people’ in the background watch on with a pleasantly befuddled attitude and occasionally get swept up into the dancing which they do with varying levels of aptitude but always a high amount of enthusiasm. 

It’s a nice film with nothing much to it. You don’t really root for any of the characters, but it’s not particularly asking that of you. It doesn’t give you much narrative, but then again it doesn’t feel like it wants to. What this film is here to do is to be a burst of bright and cheerful colour and movement, heralding the beginning of a series of colour movie-musicals that will go on to dominate the Best Picture award in the 1960s. 

The real showpiece of this is the 17-minute ballet that concludes the film. It makes no narrative sense whatsoever, has no real point to existing, and cost over half a million dollars to make alone. It’s got colour, a 1928 score composed by Gershwin and a hell of a lot of Gene Kelly Does Tap Dancing. The dancing is clearly highly skilled, and has the added bonus of making Gene Kelly look more camp than Kenneth Williams. 

So overall: there’s not much acting or story talent on display, and were this just a random film I’d certainly be questioning why it appears in the Oscar canon, and how it has been constantly recognised as one of the greatest movie-musicals of all time. But it’s a colour film, full of life, and to a post war-audience still only six years after a colossal world war, it must have been a breath of fresh air, bringing schmaltzy simple joy to cinema-goers. You can’t hate it, but you probably won’t remember it much either. 

Highlight 

The old woman in the cafe who gets roped into dancing with Gene Kelly and proves herself a fabulous poised dancer is just great. 

Lowlight

Shout out to Leslie Caron for being easily the worst actress out of a bunch of not-great actors. 

Mark 

5/10

Paul says...

Yay, colour! And a musical! An American in Paris has extravagance smothered all over it and not just because it’s directed by Vincente Minnelli, father of Liza. It’s a product of that era of musical that La La Land pays homage to- an era where the priority was spectacle, dancing, music and performance. Storyline? Who needs it?! We’ll make a couple of characters fall in love and perfunctorily connect it together with some show-stopping set pieces! When Doug and I enter the late-50’s and early-60’s, we will see how musicals developed into something much more story-heavy in films such as The King and I, West Side Story, and The Sound of Music, and then the '70s took musicals out of that twee, schmaltzy cocoon and into darker, more political territory in Cabaret, Les Miserables, Rent and, most recently, Hamilton.

So, inevitably, An American in Paris, is going to have an out-dated feel to it. The storyline is so simplistic and easy-going that it verges on insipid. The songs, though lovely, have no relevance to the plot and never drive it forward, and some of them seem to be simply a way in which Gene Kelly, Leslie Caron and Oscar Levant can showcase their formidable talents. Some elements of the film lack political correctness too. Kelly’s pursuit and flirtations with Caron would be considered sexual harassment nowadays, and the imitations of French and German languages, though amusing, are dangerously close to racism.

But it would be wrong of me to condemn it entirely for all of this because this was what people wanted at the time- they wanted music-hall-style variety, a whimsical, escapist tale that had the audience dancing in the aisles. Audiences nowadays have the same desires when they go to see Mamma Mia! or The Bodyguard. They’re not looking for profundity, they’re looking for toothy smiles and a spectrum of colour. And this films delivers just that.

Gene Kelly’s dancing is beyond human. He flits from dance style to dance style whilst incorporating facial expressions and character interactions seamlessly and as if it’s the easiest thing in the world. He may be one of three main male characters, but he is the driving force. In fact, he often took over directing duties from Minnelli due to the actual director’s preoccupation with his divorce from Judy Garland, so may have given himself even more to do than the original script intended. And Oscar Levant gets a chance to shine during a dream sequence in which he plays a variety of orchestral roles before a huge audience- and his piano skills must be seen to be believed. This sequence saves his character who otherwise has absolutely nothing to do. 

And that final dance sequence which covers the final 20 minutes is extraordinary. True, it’s irrelevant and pointless, but it moves from scene to scene and climaxes like a short story in itself. It’s the Shakespearean play-within-a-play that provides an extra dimension to the tale already told. The King and I’s Siamese version of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, The Sound of Music’s Lonely Goatherd and the fictional operas in Phantom of the Opera employ similar sections to enhance the action. 

I agree that An American in Paris hasn’t fully stood the test of time like the musicals of the '60s. However, considering that our last musical was the patchy and trite The Broadway Melody, it’s a strong step forward, and delivers slick, fun-filled Sunday-afternoon entertainment.

Highlight

THAT final 20 minutes.

Lowlight

The story is so thin it’s wasting away. Ok, that’s the intention but my 21st-century mind was not fully engaged sometimes.

Mark

7/10

23. All About Eve (1950)

This week featuring Freddie the Film Penguin as the DVD lost its case...

Plot Intro

Margot Channing (Bette Davis) is a feisty, mercurial and ageing star of the stage. Despite her nature, she is happily partnered and receives great acclaim for playing roles that are far too young for her. Her best friend Karen (Celeste Holm) introduces Margot to a young, adoring fan who has attended all of Margot’s performances - Eve Harrington (Anne Baxter). Margot and her circle are charmed by Eve’s silky voice, humility and determination to appease. But, when Eve becomes Margot’s personal assistant, the older actress grows increasingly uncomfortable with how much Eve is ingratiating herself to her partner and friends- and soon Eve’s true colours and ambitions begin to emerge…

Paul says...

We kick off the 1950’s with melodrama at its most succulent. All About Eve swept the Academy Awards of 1950, setting a new record for most nominations with a total of fourteen. This record has yet to be surpassed, although it has been equalised by Titanic and La La Land. Five of the cast members received acting nominations (only George Sanders won), and the film lapped up Best Picture, Director and Screenplay. 

All About Eve sways seamlessly between twist-laden, Gone-Girl-style thriller, darkly comic satire on age and beauty like Death Becomes Her, and a Dynasty-esque melodrama fraught with killer put-downs. Writer-director Joseph L. Mankiewicz does a superb job of juggling all three genres to create something new. The film could have been a very simple melodrama- but it has enough revelations, and a sense of humour, to give it further dimensions. I can guarantee that you will laugh at Margot’s insults, gasp and shudder at Eve’s unscrupulousness, and say “Oooh” at that surprising final scene that ensures the story completes its full circle. Skilful genre-bending such as this deserves full credit.  

Let’s also discuss the acting from the two lead actresses. It’s a shame that neither won for their performances (although both were nominated), and that this is the only time we meet Bette Davis on our Oscars journey. She is evidently having a whale of a time, revelling in her snarky one-liners, mercurial temper, and her swooshy hair. A performance with such vivacity could have quite easily stolen the show, but Baxter as Eve has that blank-faced, pseudo-innocent menace that all the great villains should have. Both are outstanding, but you’ll be cheering on Margot and her sassiness by the end. 

My one criticism is that, like many melodramas, it’s a little overwritten. Margot’s husband complains to her that her party is like a funeral by simply asking when they’re going to bury the body. A drunk, miserable Margot replies that they’re still embalming it, and Davis’ delivery is sharp enough to end the dialogue there. But the script keeps the image going so that Margot’s comeback loses its snappiness. There’s a few more examples of this where the script could have been cut down ever so slightly to reduce the film to just below two hours (it nearly hits two and a half, and if there’s no historical battle scene, then that’s too long for me).

Despite this, All About Eve is ebullient, funny, unpredictable and enigmatic, and it deserved the acclaim it has maintained over the decades. I would recommend this film to anyone who has an impending landmark birthday and wants to drown their sorrows as a result. 

Highlight

“Fasten your seatbelts. It’s gonna be a bumpy night”.

Lowlight

Some overwritten moments could have been trimmed. Don’t let this put you off buying the DVD though.

Mark

9.5/10

Doug says...

A great modern singer and poet once intoned: ‘who runs the world? Girls!’ While many may agree with this sentiment, the Oscar winning films from 1927 to 1949 don’t really take this into account. Women are there to fulfil secondary roles - at worst they fetch their doting husband’s hat (Going My Way) and at best they are a main character, but are entirely motivated and driven by the men around them (Mrs Miniver). 

1950 sweeps in, takes a dustpan and brush to the past, and delivers an Oscar winner that has no less than three - THREE - central female roles that are motivated by things other than making their husbands happy. All About Eve is iconic for several reasons, one being Bette Davis turning in the performance of her life (and subsequently being robbed of the Oscar she fully deserved). But more than that, we actually get to see realistic, clever, fiery women manipulating and changing the world around them. It’s so refreshing that we are presented with scene after scene of Margot, Eve and Karen ruling their respective roosts and ultimately driving the plot forwards. 

It’s also the first real camp film we’ve had. All About Eve is firmly embraced by gay culture, and with drawn-on eyebrows like Bette’s, it’s not hard to see why. Melodrama is the name of the game, and as we see Margot battle the insiduously evil Eve, it’s gripping and thanks to a theatre-setting - actually believable. As Eve goes after Margot’s job, partner and life, and then tries to seduce Karen’s husband, she twists words and actions around her finger until you are screaming angrily at the screen. Not bad for a nearly seventy-year-old film.

You do have to be in the mood for this film, because as Paul points out, it’s not short and it certainly feels its length, revelling in reaction shots, drawled phrases, and even a short (and well-acted) cameo from Marilyn Monroe (her first picture, and apparently she was so terrified of Bette Davis that she had to leave set to throw up in between takes). I’ve watched it before and felt irritated by the slow pace, but watching it on a Sunday evening I found the languorous meandering of the plot seductive. I particularly noticed Anne Baxter, who does a fabulous job as the utterly nasty Eve, whose blank face and false concern only momentarily slips at the end when she attempts blackmail. 

It’s full of fabulous set-pieces - notably the party where Margot explodes in self-pity and anger, and the later scene (one of my personal favourites) where she lets loose at the scriptwriter and director attempting to ease her out in favour of Eve. The fact that she berates them while standing in the middle of a theatre stage only helps the drama. And what this film really achieves that a lot of its predecessors haven’t is a cracking ending. It’s meticulously managed from beginning to end and brimming with performances that haven’t dated a day. 

   

Highlight

So many moments, but for me the moment when Margot and Karen are sat in the back of a car and Margot finally lets her mask slip to reveal a hurting damaged woman is electrifying. The acting from both is phenomenal. 

Lowlight

There’s not much to say, but I do find George Sanderson’s monotone drawl distractingly dull in the opening ten minutes. 

Mark

Bette Davis: 11/10
All About Eve: 9.5/10

The PAD Awards: 1940s

The ten 'Best Picture' Oscar Winners of the 1940s

So we're here again. It's been ten years since our last PAD (Paul and Doug) awards, and while Meryl Streep still hasn't accepted the invitation to the ceremony, we are still proud to present the winners...

Least Favourite Film 

Paul says: Going My Way

The ’40s was rife with topic-of-the-week films, so when I read that Going My Way was about priests I felt like I was in for a sentimental but powerful look at religious injustice and hypocrisy. Like Spotlight meets Love Actually. Instead, what we got was an extended episode of Sesame Street. The writers of the film evidently shied away from tackling the darker side of Catholicism or religion in general. Even though alcoholism, anti-semitism and mental health were all tackled full-force during this decade, it seems there was one topic that film-makers were too scared to dissect. The main characters are dull, the so-called villains are pathetic, the storylines trite and totally lacking in urgency, and the whole thing is a tremendous waste of two hours. 

Doug says: Going My Way

While Hamlet was truly dull, and received my lowest mark of the decade, I can’t help but feel more disappointed by the abject failure of Going My Way. I already disliked the Shakespeare play, whereas this was a contemporary film, written at the time. The dull storylines and trite singing made for an amateurish effort which I’m still agog actually won ‘Best Picture’. Either the competition that year was weak, or Bing Crosby’s voice has actual hypnotic power. Low points include a deeply unfeminist performance from the central female role, and the blurb advertising 'featuring such classic tunes as Three Blind Mice'. I mean, come on. 

Favourite Male Performance 

Paul says: Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend

I’d never heard of Milland before this film, but he astonished me here. His portrayal of a man on the brink of breakdown due to his addiction to alcohol swings like a pendulum between sympathetic and villainous. Considering the depths to which he sinks to gain another drop of whiskey, and the friends and loved ones he betrays and abuses, Milland performs no easy feat here to keep the audience behind him. He conveys vulnerability when he chickens out of meeting his girlfriend’s parents, desperation when he tears his flat apart to find a hidden bottle, nobility when he nearly makes his brother lie for him, manipulation when he hides a bottle out of his bedroom window. And all of that was in one of our shortest, and punchiest, films so far. Brava! 

Doug says: Ray Milland, in The Lost Weekend

With stiff competition from Harold Russell in Best Years of Our Lives and Broderick Crawford in All The King’s Men, this coveted award ends up with Ray Milland for his mesmerising performance as the alcoholic Don Birnam. It was a real tour-de-force, with a fully fleshed out performance including all the darker, selfish elements of addiction that Hollywood could easily be tempted to edit out. Birnam’s sharp interpretation and utter commitment to the role led to stunning, if sometimes deeply uncomfortable, viewing. Despite a slightly saccharine end, I was constantly surprised by how dark they took the storyline, and the brutal reality of Milland's performance. 

Favourite Female Performance 

Paul says: Judith Anderson, in Rebecca 

It must be very hard to be scary or even creepy when you play a character. You not only have to think carefully about movement and delivery, but you also have to have a certain look or aura about you. And that’s exactly what Judith Anderson has in Rebecca. I mean, can you imagine Cameron Diaz trying to play this?! Anderson moves very minimally, and when she does she’s like a cobra in a nest. Her impassive face, sultry voice and wide-eyed fascination with the unseen titular character all work together to send shivers down your spine. If I were trapped in a big country mansion with this shark-like woman circling me, I think I’d probably consider throwing myself from the West Wing window like Joan Fontaine (or at least throw Mrs Danvers). A big shout-out to Sara Allgood in How Green Was My Valley, Jane Wyman in The Lost Weekend and Mercedes McCambridge in All the King’s Men too.

Doug says: Sara Allgood, in How Green Was My Valley

Another hotly contested award, with obvious nominees like Greer Garson for Mrs Miniver and less obvious nominees such as Doris Dowling whose small role as a lovelorn escort in The Lost Weekend was subtly heart-wrenching. But ultimately it has to go to Sara Allgood for her beautifully measured portrayal of Mrs Morgan, the mother at the heart of the tale. While she largely mined the natural comedy of the role, the final tragic moments of the film were pushed from schmaltz into real, affecting emotion by her performance. 

Favourite Film 

Paul says: How Green Was My Valley 

I didn’t give any 10/10’s out during this decade, but if I could go back I would probably bump Valley from a 9 to a 9.5 because my one criticism of it is so pernickety that it scarcely deserves consideration. This is a marvellous film- with a host of characters and events that have you sobbing, cheering, gasping and laughing. It’s basically an extended episode of Coronation Street, featuring those kind of simple-minded, wholesome, underdog-style characters that are constantly doing battle with the impetuous, unsympathetic rich classes, and the forces of nature. It’s not entirely representative of the small-scale ’40s films (it has the episodic, anthological feel of the big ’30s epics), but it tells a story with sweetness, excitement, humour and, most importantly, a love of Welsh culture and countryside. I’d recommend it to anyone.

Doug says: The Best Years of Our Lives 

While not the highest-scoring and by no means the best of the decade, I can’t help but choose this as my overall favourite from the 1940s. It held the structure of an epic tale, with three individual strands weaving and intertwining with great writing and three interesting stories playing out. It’s particularly powerful for Harold Russell’s turn as a sailor who has hooks instead of hands (Russell really had this damage from WWII) and I found the way it tackled the true difficulties of soldiers returning post-war moving and ultimately affecting. It was a perfect Sunday afternoon film, and a treat to discover. 

Average Film Scores 

Paul: 6.1/10

Doug: 6.15/10

22. All The King's Men (1949)

Plot Intro

A bored, aimless reporter, Jack Burden (John Ireland), is commissioned to do a piece on a man running for government office, Willie Stark (Broderick Crawford). Stark isn’t particularly well known, but he is known as a completely honest man due to his lack of skeletons in the closet and his strong policies on humanitarian causes such as healthcare, schools, and health and safety. Burden becomes embroiled in Stark’s rise to fame and election as governor. But Stark’s emphatic bank-hating oratory turns nasty, as even he must turn to corruption and dirty tricks to complete his objectives, and even his followers become torn between their alliance to Stark, and their own morality.

Doug says...

I was dreading watching this one because it describes itself as a political thriller, and I don’t normally view myself as a lover of political films. Usually they tend to be full of men in suits saying words I don’t quite understand like ‘filibuster’ and go on about an hour too long. So the fact that All The King’s Men comes in at under two hours and never really lets up the pace was more than welcome. 

In fact, I’d go so far as to say this is the most modern feeling picture we’ve seen since the not-winner-but-still-reviewed-here Citizen Kaine. Reading about it, it was revealed the uncut version was considered too hefty and the decision was made to isolate the important moment of each scene, and then cut ten minutes from the beginning and ending around that moment - resulting in a film full of only necessary action, and a cracking pace quite unlike anything we’ve yet seen in this project. 

It helps too that the study of the corrupt politician Willie Stark’s rise to power rings very true with Donald Trump farcically becoming President of the United States There’s a lot of similarities - both Willie and Donald succeed by appealing to the lower class masses, and by using visual imagery of brute strength and threatening violence against their enemies. It’s thoroughly believable, and the fact that the film frames it through the eyes of a reporter Jack, who is close to Stark from the beginning when Stark isn’t corrupt - just passionate - means we really do see a close rise and fall of a man seduced by darker forces. 

I liked this film too for the fact it moves away from a lot of the 1940s film-making tropes. As I’ve said, the pace and plot moves a damn sight faster than anything else we’ve seen from this decade, but also there’s a real improvement in their writing of women. I wrote on this blog a couple of weeks ago how I’m really bored by the dewy-eyed heroines who all look the same, and almost in answer to that - Mercedes McCambridge as Stark’s secretary Sadie turns in a fiery, spiky and aggressive performance that fully deserved her Supporting Actress Win. It’s the first time we’ve seen a woman laugh in response to be slapped instead of collapsing weeping. It makes her co-star Joanne Dru’s over-acting in every scene even more conspicuous. 

Overall, I really liked it. It packs a punch, and there’s no real dead air in it as a film. Even moments that could become more melodramatic are carefully led up to in a House-of-Cards way that makes you understand why and how the characters are acting under pressure as they do. An unexpected gem: definitely. Have I been converted to political thrillers? Let’s wait and see…

Highlight 

There’s a lot that comes to mind here, but I’m torn between the rattlesnake-fast pace or Mercedes McCambridge delivering an addictively powerhouse performance. 

Lowlight

Joanne Dru really did bring the house down accidentally with her gasping, feinting, and ‘turning-to-camera’ acting. It was out of place, if hilarious, and hopefully marked the end of this forced style of acting. 

Mark 

9/10

Paul says...

We’ve reached the end of the ’40’s, a decade rife with war, mass murder, genocide, and nuclear bombs. Not the jolliest of times. And with Hitler’s rise to power still fresh in the world’s memory, and McCarthyism taking American politics by storm, a tale of governmental corruption, dirty dealings, and idealism turning to cynicism seems hugely appropriate. 

All the King’s Men is based heavily on the life of Huey Long, who became Governor of Louisiana in the late-20’s/early-30’s and, in a time fraught with bankruptcy and unemployment, used any means necessary to provide for his people. A populist and a demagogue, his career was taking a turn towards a rumoured dictatorship before he was assassinated by Dr Carl Weiss (the son-in-law of a Judge whom Long was trying to destroy). Willie Stark, in this film, goes through very similar life events. Starting as an idealistic, almost impossible do-gooder, his elevation to power transforms him into a furious rabble-rouser, and finally into a wheel-dealing manipulator determined to cover the illicit tracks he has made. The film covers all this thoroughly and clearly. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the turn it took - Stark is so disgustingly good to begin with that I was expecting something along the saccharine lines of a Frank Capra film. His descent into evil is convincing but very unexpected if you haven’t read the back of the DVD cover (or this blog).

Doug is enamoured of the pace and I agree that it was refreshing, and had that Citizen-Kane-feel of imagination and innovation on the part of the director. However, I wasn’t quite as taken in as he. For me, the film suffers from the same issue as the second half of Gone With the Wind, which throws big events and twists at its audience with such ferocity that I didn’t have time to digest or feel anything before the film moved on. The various characters (Jack Burden, his paramour Anne, her brother Adam, their Uncle, Jack’s family, Stark’s family and co-workers) are all intricately connected through affairs, secrets and machinations, and whilst I was keeping up with the pace of it, I was hoping for more time and effort on building up towards major encounters and turning-points. Game of Thrones can take 10 whole episodes before anything happens-but it’s far more gripping.

According to IMDB, (the source of all knowledge) the director would show his cast the script for each scene only once, and then film them in a state of semi-improvisation. Sometimes this works, but there were other times where I felt like the performers couldn’t give the script the punch it needed, and a scene would just fizzle out with an actor saying “yes” or “no” and/or wandering off. It’s hard to describe in words, but many scenes left me with a sense of “oh, is that it?”

Despite this, All the King’s Men boasts more creative cinematography than other films of the time, a charismatic central performance from Broderick Crawford and some brilliant feistiness from Mercedes McCambridge (both of whom won Oscars for their acting). It also competently illustrates how frighteningly easy it is for the most moral of men to fall from grace- and not even realise or care.  

I will always assert, however, that Citizen Kane covered almost identical ground with far more power. 

Highlight

Willie Stark’s first big speech to the “hick” crowds, riling them up against those awful evil rich people. It oozes charisma and it’s the moment in which Crawford asserts himself as the star.

Lowlight

The final half hour was so rife with events but with no where near enough build-up. I love a good melodrama, but this was verging on Spanish telenovela. 

Mark

6/10

21. Hamlet (1948)

Plot Intro

“Hamlet? The story is as old as time. Pretty boy son has a rich Daddy, and a good-looking Mommy. The Uncle knocks off Daddy, marries Mommy, and he cuts pretty boy out of the action. So Junior goes crazy and he kills them all. Not a pretty story…but there it is.”

“Isn’t that the plot to ‘The Lion King’?”

— Third Rock from the Sun

Paul says...

Here are my problems with Shakespeare’s Hamlet. It may be the bard’s most enduring work but it’s horrifically long- an uncut version can hit four or five hours, perhaps more- and it’s nowhere near eventful enough to warrant such a length. The whole plot hangs on the audience being involved with a hero who is convinced that his uncle killed his father, based solely on the testimony of a hallucination. It has also become theatre’s easiest profit-maker. If a production company doesn’t know what to put on for it’s Winter season, they just find the most fashionable TV actor at the time (David Tennant, Benedict Cumberbatch and Andrew Scott being the most recent choices), plonk them in Hamlet and make a bomb. No wonder so many budding new playwrights are stagnating in cocktail bars while this 400-year-old antiquity gets trundled out every year.

So I went into Lawrence Olivier’s famous adaptation with a feeling of dread. And no, it still didn’t make me love Hamlet. It’s as lugubrious and uninvolving as most Hamlet’s are (don’t even get me started on Kenneth Branagh’s 4-hour reverential rubbish). But, although I wouldn’t go so far as to call it my favourite adaptation, I would at least give it the accolade of “least bad”, which is an achievement in itself.

Many reasons why Olivier’s Hamlet is criticised are the reasons why I’m about to praise it. It’s blessedly cut down, with key characters and speeches removed, and some scenes re-ordered. At two and a half hours, it still drags occasionally but it’s bearable and the pace remains brisk enough for the audience to keep going. It also ensures that Olivier, who directed the film as well as starred in it, can utilise music, camera movement and scenery to enhance certain phrases and moments and relish them. The early scenes involving the ghost are genuinely creepy, while the play-within-a-play in Act 3 is quite intense, both because the dialogue has been stripped down and an atmosphere has been created.

Also, Olivier’s adaptation of Hamlet as a man who could not make up his mind, often dismissed as simplistic, keeps the play and film easier to follow. This is a vulnerable, fragile, psychologically troubled Hamlet, not the self-indulgent cynic that we usually get in modern times. Olivier is obviously not interested in making Hamlet complex and thought-provoking in order to appeal to literary snobs, but rather make it emotional and packed with vivacity. I am in full support of this, as Shakespeare often gets a bad rep for being elitist when really it should be made for the everyday movie-lover. 

I won’t give it a high mark, however. Despite enjoying the melodrama, sweeping music, and surrealist camera work, Hamlet remains a cold, overrated piece. Bring me the brutality of Macbeth or the machinations of Othello any time. 

Highlight

The ghost scenes are quite chilling - like something out of a Hammer horror film.

Lowlight

Polonius’ death scene goes on way too long. There’s only so much hysterical Gertrude one can take.

Mark

4/10

Doug says...

My views on Hamlet as a piece are pretty similar to Paul’s, only I quite liked Kenneth Branagh’s version (uncut at 4.5 hours as it was). It at least had colour, vibrancy and a few twists and turns (Kate Winslet as Mad Ophelia arrives in a straitjacket). This version, however, did not. 

I’m beginning to think that Hamlet is an actor’s play in that it exists mainly for actors to satisfy their own ego at the expense of any audience. There are currently three versions of it on in London’s West End (Andrew Scott, Tom Hiddleston, and the lawyer-by-day Giles Brandreth). And yet every time I’ve gone to see it, I leave wondering why everyone gets so overexcited about it. It’s dull, it’s overlong, it has far too many ponderous sentences, and while the poetry is lovely, hearing it over and over again becomes just wearying. 

So I approached Laurence Olivier’s version with wariness. And boy was I right to. I shouldn’t have been surprised really - Olivier’s style of direction was reportedly to act it out himself and tell the actor to just copy him (that ego is just phenomenal), and when his acting is as over the top and oddly wooden as this, one wonders how he managed to climb to the position of Acting Legend. Every scene was dragged out to the extent that I lost the will to follow what was happening at all. Deaths happened with no real shock, and as usual with Hamlet, we got to the final scenes with nothing more than just plain relief. 

The question of why Hamlet is such a big thing right now remains unanswered. Jude Law, Maxine Peake, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hiddleston, Andrew Scott, Gyles Brandreth, Rory Kinnear and Paapa Essidedu have all played the role recently to hugely feted audiences. The only one I wish I’d seen was Simon Russell Beale’s, about a decade ago. His performance of one particular speech at the National Theatre’s 50th Anniversary Gala was sublime and touching in a way no other actor has emulated for me. But the play must be touching some unseen nerve, for it to be at such colossal repetition on London’s stage right now. What it is, I have no idea. I don’t care for the play, and am irritated by theatre’s scheduling the same old safe bet rather than risking their luck and discovering a new, great, writer. 

Laurence Olivier muddles through with a gang of equally uninteresting actors delivering performances. The ‘To Be or Not To Be’ speech is as over the top and out of touch with the words as you could wish for, and the gravedigger speech was equally unnoticeable. A momentary light of passability came from Jean Simmond’s Ophelia whose mad scenes briefly captured something of the necessary emotion before subsiding back into wide-eyed overacting. Perhaps the real problem is twofold - one: Shakespeare doesn’t translate particularly well to screen (Baz Lurhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet aside) - and two: Hamlet isn’t actually that good.  

   

Highlight

I had a lovely nap during the middle of the film which was great. 

Lowlight

Laurence Olivier and his outdated acting really haven’t translated over the decades at all. 

Mark

0.5/10 (no lower than that other paragon of dreadfulness: The Broadway Melody)