Richard III (1912)

Directors:

André Calmettes (co-director)
James Keane (co-director)

Writers:

James Keane (writer)
William Shakespeare (play)

Release Date:

15 October 1912 (USA)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

Shakespeare's tragedy of the hump-backed Duke of Gloucester, who rises to the throne of England by chicanery...

Plot Keywords:

Mistrust Of Husband | Roman Numeral In Title | William Shakespeare | Haunted By Own Murder Victim | Resentment Toward Usurper

Cast

Robert Gemp	...	King Edward IV
Frederick Warde	...	Richard, Duke of Gloucester, afterward Richard III
Albert Gardner	...	Prince Edward of Lancaster
James Keane	...	Earl of Richmond
George Moss	...	Tressel
Howard Stuart	...	Edward
Virginia Rankin	...	York, brother of Edward
Violet Stuart	...	Lady Anne Plantagenet
Carey Lee	...	Queen Elizabeth
Carlotta De Felice	...	Princess Elizabeth

Also Known As:

Mr. Frederick Warde in Shakespeare's Masterpiece 'The Life and Death of King Richard III' (International: English title) (long title)
The Life and Death of King Richard III (International: English title)

Runtime:

55 min

Country:

France | USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color (hand-tinted)

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Silent

Filming Locations:

City Island, Bronx, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Le Film d'Art

Trivia:

Thought lost for decades, but a pristine print (believed to be the oldest known complete surviving feature film made in the US) was discovered by a private collector in 1996 and donated to the American Film Institute.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Hidden Hollywood: Treasures from the 20th Century Fox Film Vaults (1997) (TV)

Creative & Effective Adaptation

Besides its historical importance, this silent screen adaptation of Shakespeare's "Richard III" is a pretty good movie in its own right. It has several good features that compensate for the lack of dialogue and the other cinematic limitations of the time. The result is something a bit different from watching the play, but still a good story that does retain much of the emphasis of the original.

The adaptation is noteworthy for the liveliness and the detail that went into most of the scenes. They also made generally good decisions in adapting the story, by high-lighting the parts that would work most effectively on film without dialogue, and also in filming some events that were not actually in the play but to which characters in the play refer. While the lack of dialogue means that the character of Richard is not as complex as he is in the play, Frederick Warde does a good job of making his basic character come out. Some of his scenes work better than you might have expected them to without the advantage of spoken lines. The camera is fixed for each scene, as was then the norm, and it also uses the old-fashioned 'tableau' format, but there are a number of uses of cross-cutting, and there are also a couple of simple tracking shots at effectively chosen moments.

Overall, this is creative for its era, and it works quite well. It deserves to be seen in its own right, as well as for its more well-known historical significance.