A Midsummer Night's Dream

While the 1999 version is receiving mixed reviews, this classic version with a star-studded cast is delightfully mischievous. Mickey Rooney, a very young boy, has never been better cast, nor delivered a better performance. And despite the dream sequences not always being clearly distinguished from real time motion, one catches on quickly enough. Everyone, even Dick Powell, delivers his lines mellifluously, something that cannot be said for the 1999 version. There's more energy and zeal, more mystery and charm, more color(though B&W) and clarity, despite its age. Remarkable performances under exellent direction work together to make the Bard sparkle, and the film enchant.

A Midsummer Night's Dream was to be Jack Warner's bow to culture back during the Depression. The economical studio which specialized in urban dramas was doing something that normally MGM would have taken the lead in. In fact I'm not so sure that Louis B. Mayer decided that if Warner Brothers could make Shakespeare popular, he could do it better and hence Norma Shearer got to star in Romeo and Juliet.

The great German Impresario producer Max Reinhardt with co-direction from another German emigrant, William Dieterle, put this together. He played to Warner Brothers other strength, those Busby Berkeley musicals and their intricate numbers. Visually, A Midsummer Night's Dream is stunning with an ethereal quality as the various faeries and nymphs go through the woods. They do their thing to Mendelsohn's great music as arranged by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. In fact this was the start of Korngold's relationship with the brothers Warner and some of the great musical scores he wrote for them.

This was also the start of Olivia DeHavilland's great career. Olivia is one of the few major stars who literally went from unknown to star in one fell swoop. She had graduated high school and was doing some summer stock before entering college when Max Reinhardt spotted here while touring America with A Midsummer Night's Dream. When Warner Brothers got his services for this film, he brought with him Olivia and personally cast her as Hermia.

The film was held up with editing, scoring, retakes, and Olivia made and was seen in two low budget films before A Midsummer Night's Dream was released. So her debut is in a Joe E. Brown film, Alibi Ike. But this is her first film.

The material was familiar to Olivia, but not all her fellow players at Warner Brothers were so blessed. Dick Powell said that this film was one of the two worst experiences he had while at that studio. He had no training of any kind to do this classical piece and said he was lost through out the whole production.

James Cagney is no classical actor either, but as Bottom with or without the donkey's head on him, courtesy of Puck, Cagney brings his boisterous style to the proceedings and it works for the most part. Some of the other tradespeople in the town Frank McHugh, Dewey Robinson and Joe E. Brown look pretty lost though.

On loan out from MGM, Mickey Rooney steals the show as Puck. On orders from Victor Jory the Faerie King to play a little joke on his wife Anita Louise, Rooney casts a spell on her that will make her fall for the first living soul she sees. Rooney decides on is own to sweeten the joke by giving James Cagney a donkey's head and making sure that Louise sees him first. And of course the four lovers, Dick Powell, Ross Alexander, Jean Muir, and Olivia DeHavilland, Rooney confuses their affections as well as a bonus.

Rooney who was another kid actor up to this point, got his first real critical notices in this. It led to his becoming a major star over at MGM and Louis B. Mayer never lending him out to anyone again as long as he was under contract there.

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a curious film. Shakespearean purists might recoil at some of the casting, but I'm sure it was entertaining enough for the Depression audiences.

The movie is dated, true. In fact, seeing 30's Hollywood's version of Shakespearian England's version of Athenian costuming is a delight in itself. But the actors in this rendition are just amazing. Not only is the cast impressive (Cagney, Brown, Rooney, D'Havilland, Powell), but they are doing the roles with the right mixture of buffoonery and dedication to Shakespeare's love of high and low comedy together.

The casting of Cagney as Bottom was brilliant, his mixture of swagger and obliviousness is perfect, especially when played off of the great Joe E. Brown, who's rubber faced quiet performance is uproarious. Young Mickey Rooney is a wonderful puck, light and athletic, it may be his finest work. The special effects manage to give off the feeling of faerie, without overpowering what is going on. And the weaving of the two stories together works as well as might be hoped for.

I consider this to be the classic definitive Midsummer's Night Dream films. No other can ever measure up.

I came across this movie one rainy afternoon on TV. Jimmy Cagney doing Shakespeare? Surely not! My expectations were, frankly, low. We English are a bit funny about Shakespeare, as you can imagine, and the thought of the dirty rat as one of the bard's greatest comic creations was worrying, to say the least. The whole film is, however, magical. I laughed out loud at the wall joke, even though I knew what was coming, and Roony's Puck was, as another contributor says, probably his best performance. Bottom's realisation that he is now the proud possessor of an ass's head is quite affecting. It's Titania's fairies, though, that make this such a wonderful experience. I have seen this a couple of times since that rainy afternoon, and am always convinced that it will not live up to my expectations. It always does, though. The sheer beauty of the scene where the fairies awake is, as we say over here, gob-smacking. I am sure that this could never be done with such picturesque quality in colour. I had this on tape for a long time, and then I lent it to some eejit who erased it. I scan the listings every week to see if it's on TV, and when it is I shall make sure that it never leaves my possession.

Since "Shakespeare in Love" made that particular playwright happening and new, check out this, Warner Bros.' wild, expensive, free-wheeling adaptation of "A Midsummer Night's Dream".

For me, James Cagney makes the movie. He's Nick Bottom, the leader (or so he believes) of a traveling troupe of actors. He gives an invigorating performance--the screen is his. At one point, he gets to wear a donkey's head (if you know the play, you know what I'm talking about), but it doesn't faze him in the least. Cagney, the most energetic screen actor, doesn't let his over-the-top approach mar his skill or care with The Bard's great words. It's the test of anyone wishing to act out a part in a Shakespeare play, which Cagney passes, to "speak" the dialogue, and by doing so, make what might be confusing on the page understandable to audiences on the screen or stage.

Warner really spared no expense with this production, which I think might have been the costliest of that year. The whole affair is like a dream in every way--it seems to sway in the wind, fragile to the touch. It features Mendolssohn music, soft-white photography (the great Hal Mohr), and some of the most incredible sets and costumes you're likely to see in a 1930s film.

Nominated for three Academy Awards: Picture, Cinematography and Editing. Bested by "Mutiny on the Bounty" for the first, it won the other two.