grantss Shakespeare's classic drama, brought to the silver screen. Hamlet is prince of Denmark. His father, the King, died recently and, shortly after the event, his mother remarried, to the King's brother, Claudius. Hamlet is visited by a ghost who informs him that his father was murdered by Claudius for the crown. However, instead of immediately seeking revenge, Hamlet is beset by self- doubt. Machinations within the court also divide his attention.Directed by and starring the legendary Laurence Olivier, this movie is quite an achievement. Shakespeare can be quite dry and inaccessible at times and with this movie Olivier made Shakespeare mainstream. It did help that Olivier is the greatest interpreter and performer of Shakespeare the world has ever seen (sorry, Kenneth Branagh!).\Well made and well performed, Olivier certainly succeeds in making the movie accessible. Not perfect though - it does drag at times. Still, well worth watching, and more accessible than the book!

albawhall "You take Sir Laurence Olivier, for example. I saw him in Hamlet. D.B. took Phoebe and I to see it last year. He treated us to lunch first, and then he took us. He'd already seen it, and the way he talked about it at lunch, I was anxious as hell to see it, too. But I didn't enjoy it much. I just don't see what's so marvelous about Sir Laurence Olivier, that's all. He has a terrific voice, and he's a helluva handsome guy, and he's very nice to watch when he's walking or dueling or something, but he wasn't at all the way D.B. said Hamlet was. He was too much like a goddam general, instead of a sad, screwed-up type guy. The best part in the whole picture was when old Ophelia's brother--the one that gets in the duel with Hamlet at the very end--was going away and his father was giving him a lot of advice. While the father kept giving him a lot of advice, old Ophelia was sort of horsing around with her brother, taking his dagger out of the holster, and teasing him and all while he was trying to look interested in the bull his father was shooting. That was nice. I got a big bang out of that. But you don't see that kind of stuff much. The only thing old Phoebe liked was when Hamlet patted this dog on the head. She thought that was funny and nice, and it was. What I'll have to do is, I'll have to read that play. The trouble with me is, I always have to read that stuff by myself. If an actor acts it out, I hardly listen. I keep worrying about whether he's going to do something phony every minute." I had seen a preview of the movie in Galveston, Texas when I was a mere stripling of five or six years of age. I recall a blond-haired guy dressed in black wandering about the battlements of Elsinore while the soundtrack played ominous music. When I viewed the Amazon-ordered DVD later on, I could not spot the bit that "old Phoebe" liked when Hamlet patted the dog on the head. Perhaps, it was cut out by the Amazon vendors which is really a pity. I don't recall if Marcellus' perception that "something is rotten in the state of Denmark" is attributed to Marcellus or Hamlet. Anyway, to Holden Caulfield Denmark equates to him with Pency Prep, where something is 'phony' in the...etc., etc. If anyone has a VHS or DVD version of Olivier's Hamlet which includes the dog-petting scene, I would like to know--if only to validate Salinger's take on Hamlet in "Catcher in the Rye".

Eric Stevenson I really feel bad, seeing as how I have seen so few screen adaptations of not just Hamlet, but Shakespeare's work in general. I think my introduction was an episode of MST3K that showed a bad 1961 version. I am extremely happy that I managed to see this wonderful version. Now, I'm not going to talk about spoilers or anything, because we should all know the story. Even if you don't, you generally don't give spoilers to something over 500 years old. Modern folks wouldn't even care about that.I believe this deserved its Best Picture and Best Actor. It's great to see someone as talented as Laurence Oliver in his most well known performance. There's not much else to say other than the acting is great, the atmosphere is fantastic, and the pacing is wonderful. It's fairly long, but still trimmed from the original play. It seems like nothing is wasted and they really did put a lot of detail into all the plot points and had really great characters. I'm glad at least one character in this entire thing lived. Looking back, a lot of pop culture that referenced "Hamlet" makes a lot more sense.Of course, I heard "The Lion King" was loosely based on it, just with the main character living. I guess you could technically call that the best version, but this is certainly a must for anybody. ****.

Tad Pole . . . or is it like they never even existed, akin to James Stewart's "George Bailey" character in the middle portion of IT'S A WOKNDERFUL LIFE? Director\star Laurence Olivier completely edited out the R&G boys (not to mention Fortinbras) from his variation of Shakespeare's play, to give himself more time on-screen. Olivier's HAMLET becomes a pirate fighter (like Captain Bligh); an international hostage (like Richard the Lionheart); a champion fencer (like Errol Flynn), and a take-down tackling avenger from on high (like Spiderman). No doubt Larry thought he was entitled to take any liberties with this story he fancied, conflating himself with the title character, since he'd had his own private version of mad Ophelia (wife Vivien Leigh). Religious faith, on the other hand, is Hamlet Junior's undoing, as he refrains from killing serial poisoner King Claudius in the castle chapel because the latter is mumbling a combination prayer\regicide\incest confession for doing in Hamlet Senior in order to mount the throne and Queen Gertrude himself. Junior abstains from the revenge mandated by Senior's Ghost (who sounds a lot like Laurence Olivier, too) since the younger Hamlet fears this would send the ruthless killer straight to Heaven!! At least Hamlet made up his mind in recommending a nunnery (as mental institutions were referred to back then) for Ophelia. Alas, she drowned herself and got buried in the unhallowed grave of Yorick, a long-dead court jester (Olivier does not repeat the Pope joke that put Yorick into unholy ground 23 years earlier). Though Hamlet offers to eat a crocodile with Ophelia's peeved brother, Laertes, the latter stabs him in the back. After everyone dies, the rest is alleged to be silence by Olivier (though he apparently forgot to mention that to the Motion Picture Academy Oscar voters).