Hamlet
Short description
Laurence Olivier directs and stars in this 1948 adaptation of William Shakespeare's tragedy. In Denmark, the king has died and his widow Gertrude has married his brother Claudius, who takes the throne. The ghost of Hamlet's father tells the prince that he was murdered by his own brother, and Hamlet sets out to confirm the crime and take revenge, while Claudius in turn works against him. Olivier plays both Hamlet and the voice of the ghost, with Basil Sydney as Claudius, Eileen Herlie as Gertrude, Norman Wooland as Horatio, Felix Aylmer as Polonius and Jean Simmons as Ophelia. Olivier also wrote the screenplay and produced the film for J. Arthur Rank Organisation and Two Cities Films.
It runs 153 minutes and was Olivier's first turn as a film director, ahead of Richard III and The Prince and the Showgirl. Its reception is unusually strong for a Shakespeare adaptation of this period: on IMDb it holds 7.6 from over 18,000 votes, and on TMDB 7.4 from a much smaller sample of around 300. Across 49 critic reviews it reaches 8.6, well above both audience scores, suggesting reviewers responded more warmly than general viewers.
What's left behind the scenes
- Eileen Herlie, who played Gertrude, was thirteen years younger than her on-screen son, Laurence Olivier.
- The voice of Hamlet's father was provided by Olivier himself. The recorded voice was played back at a reduced speed to make it sound frightening.
- According to Shakespeare, Hamlet is a young man, but by the time of filming, Laurence Olivier, who played Hamlet, was already 40 years old.
Auditions in India
Casting calls in USA
Castingi w Polsce
Кастинги в Україні
