Review – Hamlet (1969)

This is an all-extra-boring version of the classic play. Nicol Williamson – perhaps best known for playing Merlin in Excalibur – heads a cast who all do a journeyman job of memorizing their lines and wearing their costumes, but nobody manages to work much genuine emotional content into his or her role. And speaking of the “hers,” the women in this picture – Marianne Faithfull and Judy Parfitt in particular – adopt a masculine demeanor suited to the drama’s Elizabethan origins but off-putting all these hundreds of years later. Indeed, the whole production seems more comfortable with Shakespeare’s words than with movie-making techniques. Of course it’s always interesting to see how certain aspects of the play are handled (the actor playing the ghost never appears onscreen) and what sections get cut out (alas, poor Fortinbras, skunked again). But otherwise this is too dull and self-consciously theatrical to be worth much as a movie. Mildly amusing