1948-11-27 — Page 2

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COMMENCING SUNDAY

THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1948.

Laurence Olivier's

HAMLET

To Be Screened Here In 10 Days

By

[ONGKONG will have an opportunity of seeing Sir Laurence Olivier's much discussed film of "Hamlet" in ten days' time. The gala premiere will be on Tuesday, December 7, at the Queen's Theatre.

Olivier's leading alm and ambition throughout the making of this fire wns to produce something like the picture of "Hamlet" that Shakespeare himself might have conceived and crented if he had been alive today

equipment had all the

and

a modern film studio.

cx-

Sir Laurence himself is the very first to atmit that this is on tremely tall order and an extreme- ly lofty ambition. Overweening, in

tn In

ALAN DENT

text,

rat!" and thrust his sword into them. reduction of this). The film)

bare two-thirds of Shake- This done he pulled the counsellor therefore, had to be and could only out half dead and made an end of be a

im.

speare's.

Hamlet then had a long interview with his mother, which ended in a pledge of mutual confidence between to keep his them. She engaged secret faithfully, and to ald him in his purpose of revenge. She further pre- declared that she had often vented his death and that she had of never consented to the murder his father.

he says-in being under-revious to be hanged. All this being done.

Fuch

ก

vwns

he returned to

Denmaric

and

to

One of the major problems in cut- ting Shakespeare's "Hamlet" make this film of it lay in the fact that it is probably the most familiar play in the language. It b, as the old indy said, full of quotations-ag full as an egg is full of meat, and the loss of a single quotation will be notices and pounced upon.

A general disarming should, there- fore, be possible if we divulge here King Fengon's next device was to and now what exactly had to BO The cuts include not with by the board. send the Prince to England, of

secret letters ordering that he should only minor characters (who vanish from almost all stage- there be put to death. Two of his anyhow, Ministers being sent along with him, productions of the play)-Reynaldo, and the Cornelius the Prince again, suspecting mis- Voitimand, chief-read their commissions on the Second Grave-digger. But they also voyage

while they were asleep and include--much more sensationally a word! But there is no point-as substituted one ordering the bearers Fortinbras, Rosencrantz and Guilden- the stern (the last two being venture! His

two Counsellors who are cent to the England In Shakespearean film, "Henry V."

of their death in worked out and brought about

original story as in Shakespeare)."

RETAINED TILL LATE FIRST, why Fortinbras? The truth Is that this Prince of Norway was retained until a quite late stage in the making of the film, not so much play because the audience at this ever has much concern about fate of Denmark after Hamlet's death, us because his presence-or at least his passing by at the head of his army-provides the reason for the great soliloquy beginning:

Inform

In executed his revenge with none the face of much purist opposition, the Shakespearean Hamlet's hesita- But the overwhelming majority of tions or vacillations. After stabbing the King he sets fire to the palace the critics and a large proportion of

be- and harangues the people: He the objectors were won over in the

comes a brave and popular monarch end by that Alm's artistic triumph.

and Anally dies in battle.

AN OLD TALE

ONE preliminary retort to play

purists who shout "Hands off Hamlet!" is that the plot of "Hamlet" never did belong to Sheakspeare In the first place. Shakespeare's tragedy first appeared in the year

It should be perfectly manifest, then, that the skeleton of "Hamlet" when was already in existence Shakespeare made his play of it at the turn of the sixteenth century. Someone-anyone-would be per feetly at liberty to use this skeleton as the basis of a Alm (Just as Plutarch could be used us the basis of

flm of "Antony and Cleopatra") and the text left to the undisciplined mercies of rome modern script writer.

SHAKESPEARE'S POETRY

its

"How all occasions to against me,

the

And spur my dull revenge!" That great soliloquy had at the last moment to be excised from the film. It proved to be complete- ly intractable us cinematic material, though the director tried every cons

of handing it. It ceivable way proved, in other words, to be impos- sibly static In screen terms.

1602. But there are races, and extant notices, of an earlier play on the same subject which must have appeared even carller than the year 1580. This, in turn, was founded on an old tale by a Danish historian, Saxo Grammaticus, which was first printed in 1514. This story Jater appeared in a French version by RUT there never has been so fool- Belleforist. It was called *The

hardy a nation at the back of History of Hamlet." The scene of Olivier's mind. His deep love and Its incidents is laid before the in- reverence for Shakespeare the poet troduction of Christianity into Deti- has stimulated him throughout the mark and when the Danish power making of this film right from

Another very striking cut is the still held sway over England.

inception. It is the poetry and the

entire removal of the play within Roderick, King?

Denmark, philosophy and the miraculous the play, "The Murder of Gonzago," divided his kingdom into provinces, characterisation of Shakespeare's with which Ham'at catches the con- and placed Kovernors them masterpiece that made him turn his science of the King. This has been Among these governors were two attention to it as a possible flm, scrapped entirely and replaced by warlike brothers, Horvendile and

Dumb that preliminary plece of Fengon. The former surpassed all

Shakespeare's Show which forcicits all its syllable of

action ather Danes in piracy, which

text has been "Improved" or added in minic.. This Dumb Show is often in those days, regarded as an occu-

to. But

been cutting has

con regarded by producers as mupui- pation worthy

nobleman. siderable, and

drastic. The Collere, the King of Norway, was primary reason for this reduction is uous: for the purposes of the m It is the spoken play which has been so envious of the achievements of that, as a general rule, no flm run- Horvendile in this craft that he ning more than three hours is regarded as superfluous. challenged him to o duel. The commercially fepalble. The uncut challenge was accepted, the victor to text of Humlet playa in the theatre have all the riches that were in the for a full four hours. (The usual considerable other's ship. Collere was slain, and theatre-version Horvendile returned

of a

wus.

Denmark

who

with much treasure, most of which he sent to King Roderiek thereupon gave him his daughter. Geruth, in marriage. From this marriage sprang Hamlet, the hore of the tale. (Note that this carly called Geruth AT 2.30, 5.20, Hamlet's mother is

which, by an easy transition, be-

the comes

Queen Gertrude of

·7.20 & 9.20 P.M. Shakespeare).

201 Century-fox)

Montgomery in "HERE COMES MR. JORDAN”

FEIGNS MADNESS

NENGON became so envious of his triumphant brother now become King of Denmark-that he resolved to kill him. Before doing this he corrupted Geruth, and after kliling. his brother he married the widow. Young Hamlet, thinking he

Was likely to fare no better than his father, began to felga madness One of Fengon's friends, suspecting the young man's madness to be feigned, counselled Fengon to use somu means for discovering his purpose. (This, of courso, is the first clear intimation of the Character who becomes Polonius Ine

Shakespeare), The device having been prepared, the counsellor went into the Queen's chamber and hid behind the hang- Queen ings. Soon afterwards the and the Princo came in; but the treachery, Jatter, suspecting some kept up his pretence of being mad and bent the hangings with his

Feeling nrms.

something behind them, he erled "A rall

stir

Not o

even

ទេវ

#

JEAN SIMMONS as Ophelia

Others in the Cast: Elleen Herllo, as Gertrude, Queen of Denmark: Basit Sydney, as Claudius, King of Denmark Felix Aylmer as Folenlus Norman Wooland as 'Horalfo Terence Morgan as Laertes

TRANSPOSITIONS

an

THERE have, finally, been a few

For cases of transposition, example, the exquistle scene be- tween Hamlet and Horatio, the scente beginning:

"Horatio, thou art e'en as just

A man

As e'er my conversation caped, withal......

and happening before the courtiers assemble for the play, has been moved bodily to a scene near the end of the film where it becomes an intimate conversation between Ham- let and Horatio just before the en- trance of Oarie to arrange the de tails of the duel with Laertes. -

L

Anyone who queries the propriety, of such transpositions can have little knowledge of the peculiar difficulties

.ង of turning a great play Into

The rhythms of the worthy film. two are subtly different. The action often and its ordering has to be

drastically slightly and sometimes altered.

And, as we began by saving, oll Buch nitering, cuttings, transposings artist who have been made by on has been possessed throughout the ventura with the idea of making thr Alm of

William "Hamlet" that Shakespeare might have made if he hnd belonged to the middle of the twentieth century Instead of the turn ať the sixteenth, That, been throughout this film, has Laurence Olivier's guiding principle, *ns artist-director-actor.

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