Gary D.

A few years ago, I was given a copy of Ian McKellen’s Richard III, which I reluctantly took. Usually, whenever I try to watch Shakespeare it takes me fifteen minutes into the movie before I can begin to grasp what the actors are saying.

The exception was Romeo and Juliet, with age-appropriate actors. Both Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey were in their teens—not like Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard, in their thirties, with Howard wearing a hairpiece, although a very good hairpiece (I never knew he wore one until I read a Selznick biography).

This film grasped my attention from the very beginning. McKellen must have been inspired to set it in an alternate-reality 1930s Britain. I watched the film several times and gave it as a ‘loaner’ to someone, who never watched it, and worse, never returned it. Now, I want another copy for my collection.

Gary Judkins

orpheum

Now is the winter of my discontent as i no longer haveth my copy of richard III

Welcome To Highbury The Home Of Football

Steve Crook

Gary, if you like alternate-reality Shakespeare you might like to try:
Forbidden Planet (1956) - "The Tempest" in outer space
Romeo + Juliet (1996) - "Romeo and Juliet" in a modern-day city of Verona Beach
or some of the many other updated versions. It helps to make them more interesting if you know the original, but it's by no means essential

Steve

Harleybloke

Branagh's Henry V.

An' I've been to Azincourt, the battlefield is not much changed.................

.......Perfidious Albion we is!

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!

James Fox

Yes! This and Orson Welles' "Chimes At Midnight" are probably my favorite Shakespeare films.

Thought McKellan's "Richard III" was very good, though overall I prefer Olivier's.

Gary D.

Steve, I've see Forbidden Planet, and it's one of the most thought-provoking science-fiction films of the era. I can't get over how straight-laced Leslie Nielson is in it--long before he discovered his comedic talent (insulting the Queen and the first President Bush, among others).

On the whole, I don't get Shakespeare in modern dress--Richard III was an exception for me.

Gary

Steve Crook

I've always like Romeo & Juliet, it's a great, tragic, love story. I thought that Romeo + Juliet (1996) was a superb updating of it into a modern setting.

Steve