Review by sjrb66

I was fortunate to see this production of the NY Shakespeare Festival when it transferred to Broadway (and I was in high school), and it was a glorious treat. Waterston and Widdoes were wonderful as the sparring lovers battling one another with words. Barnard Hughes was terrific as Dogberry, recreating a Keystone Cops routine. The setting of the Spanish American War era was a very fine transfer, and the first Shakespeare production I had seen that didn't use the Elizabethan period. I had lots of wonderful memories of this production, and even managed to catch it when it was broadcast on television in 1973.

Several years ago, I found a copy of this and rented it, and it didn't live up to my memories of the stage production. It is a filmed play, not re-conceived and produced as cinema, and has all of the flaws that filmed plays have: sets that can magically evoke a time and place on the stage, but seem flimsy on film; stage acting that works when you see it in a theatre, but seems overdone on film; a small ensemble playing entre'acte music that charms when heard live, but seems small and tinny on film. Much of the performances that I remembered with affection, particularly those of Waterston and Widdoes, were still very fine, and Hughes is still my favorite Dogberry.

It doesn't hold up well when compared to the Branagh Much Ado, which was definitely conceived in cinematic terms (like the galloping troops at the opening evoking The Magnificent Seven), and which was much better at conveying how Claudio could be duped into believing that Hero was a wanton woman and not the virgin he had wooed. But Branagh cut my second favorite line from his Much Ado ("your Hero, his Hero, everyman's Hero").

This version of Much Ado is charming for what it is: a filmed play, with talented performers, in a lovely production. But it is not great cinema.