[gets up during the soliloquy to see Vivien Leigh]

It wasn't all that long ago that the 1953 version of Julius Caesar showed up on TCM and, as I had it on my DVR, I watched it to do a post here. I've got another Shakespeare adaptation that TCM ran during 31 Days of Oscar, and now it's on again about two months later: the 1948 version of Hamlet, tomorrow (May 11) at 10:30 AM.

This is the Laurence Olivier version of the movie, and as you can guess, he plays Hamlet and even directs himself. I assume most people already know the plot of Shakespeare's play. Hamlet was the crown prince of Denmark, son of the king, but while he was studying in what is now Germany, his father died and his uncle Claudius (Basil Sydney) not only took the crown, but married Hamlet's mom Gertrude (Eileen Herlie)! Ballsy. However, something that looks like it could be the ghost of Hamlet's father has been walking the castle parapet at night. Hamlet, having returned home, is the only one who can hear the ghost, and it tells him that yes, this is the ghost of his father the former king and that Claudius killed him, so you Hamlet must avenge my death!

Meanwhile, advising Claudius is Polonius (Felix Aylmer), who has two kids. Laertes, his son, is sent off to France, while Ophelia (Jean Simmons) is in love with Hamlet, and the feeling is mutual. But to make certain that Stepdad doesn't suspect him, Hamlet feigns insanity until he can find out for real whether or not Claudius killed his own brother in order to usurp the throne. Hamlet concludes that yes, it did happen, but he still can't bring himself to kill Stepdad because, as Olivier tells us in an opening monologue, this is a play about a man who can't make up his own mind.

Since the major Shakespeare plays all have well-known plots, there's more to discuss than just the plot when talking about an adaptation. The first thing is what gets removed. Shakespeare's plays being so well-known, and having a lot of fans, taking stuff out to simplify things for a movie audience is likely to cause problems. Imagine if somebody tried to do Hamlet without the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, or Romeo and Juliet without Juliet on the balcony. But the play itself would run a good four hours if nothing is edited. As it is, Olivier edited it down to a little over two and a half hours in part by getting rid of Fortinbras on one hand, and Rosencrantz and Guildenstern on the other. Also, if Olivier delivered the "The play's the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the King" line, I must have missed it. So some purists may not like the edits.

Then there's always the chance you'll get actors who are good in normal movies, but not necessarily up for the difficult early 17th century Shakespearean dialogue. I mentioned this in the earliest days of the blog when I discussed Warner Bros.' 1935 adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream, which makes the inspired choice of putting the studio's comic actors into Bottom's acting troupe. Whether you think James Cagney does well with the material is a different question. (I happen to think he does OK, although the British stars are more natural.) And let's not talk about Edna May Oliver and Andy Devine at the beginning of the MGM adaptation of Romeo and Juliet.

However, Olivier is unsurprisingly quite good himself, and mostly gets good performances out of the others. Sydney and Herlie are, I think more of stage actors than movie actors as I didn't really recognize them from anything else. Simmons was at the beginning of her career, and I read some reviewers who think she's a weak point here, but I didn't notice that. Terence Morgan as Laertes, is a particular standout in a good way among the supporting cast. And watch for Peter Cushing and Anthony Quayle in small roles.

Then there's the staging. Olivier had made Henry V in Technicolor, but reverts to black and white here, which actually suits the material well with the brooding shadows of the ghost among other things benefiting.

Some people might want a complete presentation of a Shakespeare play, but if you've never actually seen a production of Hamlet before, the Laurence Olivier version isn't a bad place to start.