Olivier's Hamlet

Laurence Olivier's Hamlet was cut from the Shakespeare play, leaving out several characters and some soliloquys. We enjoyed the film, but we were quite annoyed by a couple of things about the video. First was the announcement at the beginning informing us what the play was about. Humph! Like we couldn't figure that out on our own? The other was the complete and total lack of special features. There were chapter divisions. That's it. No interviews, no filmographies of the players. Nothing!

This version was quite different from Mel Gibson's Hamlet, which we saw recently. Olivier was much more restrained, as was Jean Simmons as Ophelia.

Criterion Collection has a wonderful review.