A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935)

The spirit that animates this version of the play is not that of William Shakespeare but Felix Mendelssohn. Shakespeare's text has been trimmed to a nubbin and hashed up by the "arrangers," Charles Kenyon and Mary C. McCall Jr., and it's gabbled by the all-star cast. Strangely, Olivia de Havilland as Hermia and Mickey Rooney as Puck are the worst offenders, and they are the only members of the cast of Max Reinhardt's celebrated 1934 Hollywood Bowl production, which inspired Warner Bros. to film the play, who made it into the movie. De Havilland delivers her lines with heavy emphasis on seemingly random words and with odd pauses, while Rooney punctuates every line with giggles, chortles, and shrieks that affect some viewers like fingernails on a chalkboard. Nobody in the cast seems to be aware that they're speaking verse. Fortunately, the decision was made to use the Mendelssohn overture and incidental music (along with snippets of other works by Mendelssohn), and to have it orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The result is an opulently balletic version of the play, taking advantage of what can be done in movies that can't be done on stage. Is it good? Maybe not, but it's much more fun than the stodgily reverent version of Romeo and Juliet (George Cukor, 1936) that MGM came up with the following year. Casting James Cagney as Bottom/Pyramus and Joe E. Brown as Flute/Thisby was a masterstroke, and if they had been directed by someone with a surer sense of American comic idiom than Reinhardt, the Viennese refugee from Hitler who spoke very little English (Dieterle acted as interpreter), the results would have been classic -- as it is, they're just bumptious fun. Much of the movie is sheer camp, reminiscent of the twee illustrations for children's books in the early 20th century. But there is a spectacular moment in the film when Oberon (Victor Jory) gathers the fairies, gnomes, and bat- winged sprites to depart, under a billowing black train that sometimes resembles smoke. The cinematography by Hal Mohr won the only write-in Oscar ever granted by the Academy. (charlesmatthews.blogspot.com)

This is true classic. This is the movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great special effects. It is very funny. This is the first movie where some said fart. Now do not know the first movie were some blow a fart. But this is the first movie were some said fart. It surprised me to hear that world in movie. I think that is a very funny word. This a very funny movie. It a great fantasy movie. See it. I give it 7 out of 10. William Shakespeare was a great writer. Ian Hunter was a great actor. Dick Powell was a great actor. Olivia d.e Havilland is a great actress. Ross Alexander was a great actor. Jean Muir was great actress. See this movie. It is a great movie.

A refurbished 'Midsummer Night's Dream' is now available. A 1935 rendering of Shakespeare's play with the 16 year old Mendelssohn's masterpiece as background music. Austrian born theater impresario Max Reinhardt co directed it with German-born William Dieterle a Hollywood filmmaker. The influence of German expression is noticeable, but it takes nothing away from the Bard's fairy tale. A parade of Hollywood stars and character actors parade across the screen with Shakespeare's meter and line as dialogue. Romantic leads, song and dance men, comedians and what ever you would find in a Studio's rooster of the Golden Age of Hollywood Studios. Victor Jory, Tina Louise, Ross Alexander, the young Olivia DeHavilland (still alive at 97), Dick Powell, Jane Muir. Then there the eternal laughter of Hugh Herbert as Snout, the plastic faced Joe E. Brown as Flute, the eternal harassed backstage guy in musicals Frank McHugh as Quince and a trim Arthur Treacher without much to say. The ensemble turns in a stellar performance. But it's the 13 year old Mickey Rooney as Puck that is a wondrous delight as his name implies. His performance is almost matched by Jimmy Cagney as Bottom the weaver who is transformed in an ass. And then there is the eternal play of night and day, the aerie lightness of the fairies and the dark brooding of the Teutonic nights of Oberon. This is a film that 80 years on doesn't creak, but is a surprise to the unsuspecting eye that comes up this version of 'Midsummer Night's Dream'. The play has been brought to the screen many times over, but no version has and can match the Reinhardt production, a savvy fixture of theater and cinema. It should and deserves to be seen!

Don't get me wrong: this is a fine movie, and often a dreamy and captivating one at that; but, if you are expecting to see an interpretation of a Shakespeare play, you will be disappointed. What I mean is, Warner Brothers decided that the movie should focus primarily on what movies do best, which is to create a magical experience for the viewer; hence, the overwhelming majority of the movie is spent on phantasmic and mystical sets, wondrous special effects, and outrageous costumes and dance numbers, all for the goal of transporting you into a dream-world of fairies and gnomes and star-crossed lovers.For a secondary goal, the producers wanted to show off their two major stars, James Cagney and Mickey Rooney. Rooney, only 14 or so, was a young man of incredible talent, possessing perhaps the finest natural gift for entertainment in all of American cinematography. Does he over-act here, as many have complained? I don't think so; he is appropriately exuberant, and, well, Puckish. A worse problem is that his voice was just changing, and is awfully harsh and grating at times, caught as it is is between childhood and adulthood.Mendelssohn's music is featured heavily also throughout, being used to enhance the spectral quality of our film.But what about Shakespeare? The play itself is one of the Master's shorter plays, and can be read through out loud in about 2 hours. A Shakespeare play is primarily about the words, and the poetry. Unfortunately, the producers of this movie version easily cut out over 80% - I am not exaggerating - of the lines of the 4 lovers and Theseus and Hippolyta. Almost no speech of more than 4 or 5 lines remained unmassacred. As a result, the script is choppy and unpoetic, dreadful really. A lot of the logic of the speeches and the story are completely lost, due to the devastating excising of the script; just one example: Theseus overrides Egeus' wish to have Demetrius marry Hermia, without him ever actually being told that Demetrius no longer loves her, and has fallen for Helena instead.If you are a hard-core Shakespeare reader, you will also note, frustratingly, how just about all the "thees" and "thous" have been changed to "you-s". One of the great pleasures of reading Elizabethan drama is to follow how playwrights' characters switch back and forth between thee-ing and you-ing, depending on the relationships between the speakers; "Thee" is used either to express closeness, or deliberate informal insult and contempt; "You" is subtle, defining a respectful relationship, or helping to preserve distance between speakers. All of this is lost in the movie.And why do so many of the characters have to laugh uncontrollably while they are speaking? Just another minor irritation, I guess.So, while this version of MND is great fun as a movie, don't expect to get to hear a lot of the poetry of the Bard.