Shakespeare in Performance: Film

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935, William Dieterle)

Description

An ambitious Hollywood production that is almost a paradigm for the large-studio production methods of the Golden Years prior to WW II. The star-studded cast includes the biggest names in Hollywood, such as Mickey Rooney, James Cagney and Joe E. Brown. The combination of the director's German expressionism (particularly apparent in the unforgettable ballet sequence when Nini Theilade portrays the coming of night) with Hollywood realism (gangster types like Cagney cast as one of the rude mechanicals) resulted in a curious hybrid that baffled the critics. Fifty years ago none had a vocabulary for coping with such a radical re-representation of a Shakespearean play. At one level the film seemed to be a Hollywood vulgarization, and at another a gigantic tribute to Shakespeare's timeless charm. Hence in its own day the production was alternately damned and praised. Although the film boldly and creatively adapted the play, it was neither quite a critical nor a commercial success. Its poor showing at the box office contributed to Hollywood's growing apprehension about Shakespeare's plays being "box office poison."

Description from Shakespeare on Screen : an International Filmography and Videography by Kenneth S. Rothwell and Annabelle Henkin Melzer. ©1990 Kenneth S. Rothwell. Cited by permission. — Added 2008-11-14

Cast Overview

Production Team and Crew Overview

Production information courtesy of: Kenneth Rothwell