Hamlet (I) (1964)

The highly successful 1964 Richard Burton Broadway production of "Hamlet", deliberately staged in the style of a "dress rehearsal", but performed in front of a live audience.

Directors:

Bill Colleran, John Gielgud

Writer:

William Shakespeare (play)

Stars:

Richard Burton, Hume Cronyn, Alfred Drake

Cast

Credited cast:
Richard Burton	...	Hamlet
Hume Cronyn	...	Polonius
Alfred Drake	...	Claudius
Eileen Herlie	...	Gertrude
William Redfield	...	Guildenstern
George Rose	...	First Gravedigger
George Voskovec	...	Player King
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Hugh Alexander	...	Cornelius / Second Gravedigger / English Ambassador
Philip Coolidge	...	Voltimand
Christopher Culkin	...	Player Queen
John Cullum	...	Laertes
Michael Ebert	...	Francisco / Fortinbras
Dillon Evans	...	Reynaldo / Osric / Fortinbras's Captain
Clement Fowler	...	Rosencrantz
Geoff Garland	...	Lucianus

Storyline

Sir John Gielgud directed this "Electronovision" taping of the play "Hamlet" performed at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater on Broadway in 1964 ("Electronovision" was a short-lived gimmick which was basically closed-circuit TV). The most unusual thing about this film is that the actors are in street clothes instead of period costumes, and the sets are minimal, to say the least.

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Plot Keywords:

royalty | shakespeare's hamlet | ghost | theatre | resentment toward stepfather | 

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

23 September 1964 (USA)

Also Known As:

Richard Burton's Hamlet

Filming Locations:

Lunt-Fontanne Theatre - 205 West 46th Street, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Theatrofilm

Technical Specs

Runtime:

191 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Eileen Herlie also played Gertrude in Laurence Olivier's Oscar-winning 1948 Hamlet. Whereas she was 11 years younger than her "son" when Hamlet was played by Olivier, she was seven years older than Richard Burton.

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Connections

Version of Hamlet (1990)

User Reviews

Crude, black-and-white filming of a famous Broadway production: it feels like a shadow from the past

I didn't know a record of this famous production existed until I found it on DVD at the library. What a find! John Gielgud directed Richard Burton in "Hamlet," an acclaimed production in modern dress that was eventually recorded with a process called Electronovision and released in movie theaters. What's fascinating is that this is a record of an actual Broadway performance before an audience; the actors make no concession to the cameras and change nothing. The black-and-white process is crude, far inferior to that of recent stage shows presented on PBS. Yet I was amazed how compelling the show was anyway. Maybe the crudeness helped. It felt like a shadow retrieved from the past: I thought of the filmed dream from "Quatermass and the Pit."

Richard Burton makes a fine Hamlet, more virile and physical than most; his intellectual side is de-emphasized but far from lost; and he's funny. The rest of the cast is uniformly good, but Hume Cronyn stands out as Polonius. He's so good, so funny, so able to bring out both the wisdom and the foolishness of the character that until he's dispatched, the play feels like the "Hamlet and Polonius Show."

Happily a year ago, I found at a thrift store a book by Richard L. Sterne (one of the minor players in this production) called "John Gielgud Directs Richard Burton in Hamlet." It includes transcripts of Gielgud directing the cast, the prompt script Gielgud created, and Sterne's interviews with Burton and Gielgud. I've only looked into it, but I can highly recommend it based on what I've read. Anyone who finds this DVD may want to seek out the book as well.