Hamlet

"Hamlet" by William ("We all make his praise") Shakspeare is arguably the greatest play ever written - in fact, it's possibly the greatest work of literature ever written in the English language. Given these facts, imagine my surprise when Mystery Science Theater 3000 (the recently defunct TV show in which bad movies are goofed on by a janitor and his two robots) decided to give this their special treatment.

Specifically, they did this 1960 production for German Television, featuring the highly respected Maximilian Schell in the title role. Now laugh I as I did along with the jokes made at the movie's expense, I really can't see too much wrong with the movie. Herr Schell is more than credible as the Melancholy Dane, and the dark dreary scenery only serve to underscore the mood of the play and its characters. As for dialogue, well how could you possibly go wrong?

As for complaints that much of the play was missing, it must be remembered that our friends at Best Brains had to edit the movie (which as I understand, ran for about 3 hours) to fit their little TV show, which ran for 2 hours, including commercials.

I, for one, am inclined to cut this movie a good bit of slack.

Yay!... I think. It's hard to say. It's hard to have an emotion about a movie that has no emotion. This movie is as sterile as a surgeon's scalpel. For a setting, it has a few stone pillars, some stone seats, a couple stone crosses and some stone actors. They have no emotion! The only thing that saves this movie is the fact that it is Hamlet, and Hamlet is a terrificly written piece of literature. The dubbing really wasn't all that bad though. The voices stuck true to the dull, gloomy, dreary, life-sucking atmosphere the movie gave forth. I have seen this version of Hamlet on the fabulous Mystery Science Theater 3000 three times, and each of the three times, I was on the brink of turning off the TV, despite it being MST 3K.

Not an uplifting production of a drama that deserves so much better.

Produced in German for German television, this production of Hamlet becomes distinctly eerie when dubbed back into English. The production design is also "German Minimalist", typical of that era, making the movie rather bleak, even for Hamlet.

Despite the virtually non-existent sets and English-German-English translation, Maximilian Schell turns in an admirable performance as Hamlet.

This film was screened on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Whether or not this movie was "bad" enough for such dissection is open to debate, but Mike and the Bots leveled some excellent quips ("Honey, what happened to all the ear poison?").

Yes folks that WAS Ricardo Montalban dubbing for Claudius, and his voice, his reading was quite good! That didn't stop the comedian-hosts of MST3K" from making cracks about Cordoba car commercials & "Fantasy Island." I'd say the worst thing about this thing is the cheapness of production (lost of black background, very few set pieces, very simple pieces) and the god-awful dubbing! Maximillian Schell, an excellent actor, is not half-bad as Hammie, but my favorite thing was listening to Ricardo Montalban. "Smiles, everyone, smiles!"

You'd think that the immortal words of William Shakespeaere would be able to rise above just about anything, but alas bad acting and really bad sets will drag down even the most wonderful playwright. As usual, Hamlet broods over the death of his father. In this version, Elsinore is nothing more than some pillars, stairs, and a lot of black backgrounds. The fact that it's dubbed into English from German doesn't help this production. The actors seem to be forcing the lines from their mouths, and climatic battle between Laertes and Hamlet doesn't have the punch or tension that it should have. It was great seeing this on MST, their satiric tounges ripping into the acting and sets but sparing the dialouge. By the way, we're out of ear poison.