A Midsummer Night's Dream

Early cinema produced scores of Shakespearean-based films, showing mainly highlights of his works. Vitagraph Studio's Dec. 1909 release of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" was the very first film to present the entire framework of a Shakespeare play.

Co-directed by Charles Kent and J. Stuart Blackton, who provided the special effects, this effort is remarkable considering they had to unfold the play within a one-reel (11-minute) time limitation--which was the rigid standard in Nickelodean theaters during those days. The film did drop a few details of The Bard's play, but all in all, the Vitagraph movie touched upon the main points, including the numerous romantic relationships.

Seen as one of the two very young fairies were the Costello sisters. The oldest (five-years-old at the time) was Dolores Costello (in the middle of the bottom photo). Dolores would have a successful silent movie career and be nicknamed "The Goddess of the Silver Screen." More fame would come to her when she married actor John Barrymore and gave birth to actress Drew Barrymore's father, John Drew Barrymore. The marriage lasted only five years, from 1930 to 1935. Her film career ended after early film makeup affected her face and it was too noticeable on the screen to be camouflaged.

This adaptation of Shakespeare's play was one of Vitagraph's prestige productions from 1909. Like all adaptations of the Bard, it's pretty confusing if you don't know the play – and possibly not too clear even if you do. Vitagraph attempts to keep the viewer up to speed with what's taking place on screen with lengthy titles which don't really help at all. The film makes good use of real locations – mostly a forest near to the studio, and there is also some reasonably impressive (for the time) trick photography. The ass's head however is something of a disappointment it has to be said – I've seen better at school plays. The last third of the film has been lost apparently, but I honestly don't think that will affect your viewing pleasure too much.

This very early silent filming of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" works well. While it's too bad to have to do without Shakespeare's dialogue, the play lends itself well to film, and this one is done with a zest that makes up for the cinematic limitations of the time. It covers most of the main events in the zany plot, and tells the story pretty well. Most of the actors are at least adequate, and the young girl playing Puck steals every scene she is in. The fantasy nature of the play lends itself to special effects, and they have used quite a few in the short running time. Most of them work well, and while a couple are a bit creaky, there are also a couple of them that are excellent. Overall, it is a good treatment of one of Shakespeare's most pleasant plays. It's fun to watch, and for its time deserves praise.

I'm becoming convinced that it is extremely difficult to bring Shakespeare to film without doing some major translations, at least using modern notions. There's just too much invested in the spoken language itself from whence all the stuff flows that is normally associated with the cinematic.

I've been looking at several silent treatments. Naturally enough, they fall flat. But this one doesn't because it emphasizes the play of the "mechanicals." The abstraction of that play on film, the jumping and gesticulating is along the same lines as ALL the acting of that day, but double.

If you were going to try a film, the best plot device is the play within the play (of any of his plays that have this). And the best abstraction strategy is to just take his existing exaggeration and exaggerate it.

It is all a matter of what you are tricked into falling in love with.

Ted's Evaluation -- 3 of 3: Worth watching.

This version of Shakespeare's play works well with some excellent performances (the girl playing Puck, Julia Swayne-Gordon, Maurice Costello, Florence Turner) and an attempt to pack in all the twists and turns of the plot into a very short time span. The curio is that Oberon is omitted and Penelope added instead - very odd! The players are also very funny, particularly the wild looking actor playing Bottom. Not at all boring and exceptionally good quality visually.