The Taming of the Shrew (1929)

Director:

Sam Taylor

Writers:

William Shakespeare (play)
Sam Taylor (adaptation)

Release Date:

30 November 1929 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy

Tagline:

All Talking! All Laughing!

Plot:

Adapted from Shakespeare's play: Baptista Minola, a wealthy resident of Padua, is the father of Katherine and Bianca...

Plot Keywords:

Padua | Verona | Satire | Wife And Husband Lead Actors | Shrew

Cast

Mary Pickford	...	Katherine
Douglas Fairbanks	...	Petruchio
Edwin Maxwell	...	Baptista
Joseph Cawthorn	...	Gremio
Clyde Cook	...	Grumio
Geoffrey Wardwell	...	Hortensio
Dorothy Jordan	...	Bianca

Runtime:

63 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Western Electric Sound System)

Certification:

Australia:G | UK:U

Filming Locations:

Iverson Ranch, Chatsworth, Los Angeles, California, USA

Company:

Elton Corporation

Trivia:

Douglas Fairbanks' and Mary Pickford's marriage had deteriorated so badly by the time they made this film that many onlookers said that Fairbanks exaggerated Petruchio's harsh treatment towards Katharina in order to take out his own frustrations on Pickford.

Movie Connections:

Featured in "The American Experience: Mary Pickford (#17.6)" (2005)

The play is not the thing.

This very maligned film may not be great Shakespeare, but it is good fun. Mary Pickford's biographer Scott Eyman points out that this film has a reasonable ancestry, being based on David Garrick's performing edition of the play. Be that as itr may, Doug and Mary give us less than half of the text, and throughout the film they play it safe by alternating between silent pantomime and heavy theatrical declamation. Playing it safe? In 1929 it was still not clear whether or not sound was a passing fad.

Of the two stars, Doug is clearly the better. Director Sam Taylor moulds the roles around the performer, and not the other way around, which was unwise but understandable. The Fairbanks image suits Petruchio better than Pickford's suits Kate. (At her best Pickford is magnificent, at her worst embarrassing. She herself called it one of her worst performances, and there is no reason to doubt her.)

For an early talkie it has remarkable fluidity, though it is only the 1966 re-edited version that is available today. (When I approached the Mary Pickford Company in 1992 to see if I could arrange a screening of the 1929 release print - which was longer and had a different score - I was politely but firmly told to go away!)

Two points of interest. This film was emphatically not the box office flop that many writers have claimed; it returned a healthy profit on its first release. And the credit line "by William Shakespeare, with additional dialogue by Sam Taylor" is pure myth. It appears not in the script, the 1966 nor in the 1929 (I have it on reliable authority) prints of the film. Where do these things get started?