Macbeth

I suppose for a Scot MacBeth is the role you want to have a chance to play. And for someone like Sean Connery who has never kept his Scottish nationalist feelings a secret this must have been the break of a lifetime.

For an artist yes, but Connery would wait another year before he got the career break to make him an international star as 007 James Bond in Dr. No.

This was done for British television in 1961 and for those of us on this side of the pond British television was about a decade behind what US television was looking like in 1961. It's a good thing that mists are a part of Scotland lore because it allows for the production to be done on the cheap. It looks a lot like Orson Welles's version of MacBeth done for Republic under the penny pinching restraints that Herbert J. Yates put on Welles.

Of course Connery was not an international star hardly at this point. He had mostly done supporting roles on the big screen, most notably in Darby O'Gill And The Little People.

His interpretation of MacBeth is not something acclaimed. It's adequate. I don't ever recall Connery in his long career ever expressing a desire to do the classics. Maybe he had his fill here.

This MacBeth is a curiosity. It's also one cut down version from the original play. Connery is good, nothing more.

This is a small budget abridged production if Macbeth. The budget is like simply filming a theatrical production. That is not something I mind but some might given where filming productions is now 60 years later.

The problem isn't the performance or anything but my trying to find a quality print of this. An Age of Kings has one released and it's great. If this production had a release like that, it would be rated higher. It would also be rated higher if the play itself wasn't abridged.

A good curiosity for Connery fans but it's not the best made for TV version of Macbeth I've ever seen. That belongs to the early 80s BBC production starring Nicol Williamson and Jane Lapotaire.

I saw this CBC (the Canadian public broadcaster) production of MacBeth as a young child and I have never forgotten it.

Like almost everyone else, I saw it on an old, rabbit-eared B&W TV which made the stark visuals work especially well. I was too young to have an opinion about whether the witches should have been played like old hags or (as here) disturbing young women, but they certainly scared the bejesus out of me when I was young, and re-watching it 57 years later brought all the creepy back.

In 1961 terms, this was a modern production and interpretation, and along with Connery (before Bond, but after Darby O'Gill and the Little People) as a youngish MacBeth, it had a pretty high-powered Stratford Festival Cast, and like many CBC and BBC Shakespeare productions, one of the purposes was obviously to create a version that would work to introduce young people to the play.

At this point it seems the opposite of modern, of course, and the quality of the video alone would probably disqualify it for that or almost any other purpose. But if you can manage to watch it as it might have seemed to a television audience in the early 1960s - maybe put on a pair of horn-rimmed glasses - you probably won't be disappointed.

Sean Connery rocks in this! Although I prefer Orson Welles' more subdued, introspective Macbeth, here Connery delivers his own high-powered performance that you won't soon forget. This is a very theatrical version, full of sound & fury, histrionics and big arm movements. Cynical audiences might not buy into it, but if you were to go back to the early 1600s this is probably the way you'd see Shakespeare done.

The plot of Macbeth, if you were snoozing during high school English class, is about an 11th century Scottish warrior who hatches a dubious plan to steal the throne. Spurred on by his wife Lady Macbeth, who wears the pants in the household, he finds himself swiftly slipping down the path of evil. It's the conflict between his dark ambition and his moral half that makes this IMO the most gripping of Shakespeare's plays.

As I mentioned above, Orson Welles' famous 1948 version gives us a Macbeth who is repressed, depressed and deeply tormented. Many of his lines are delivered under his breath with an air of sadness, sorta like an "emo" Macbeth (which I actually like). In this version, Connery gives us a louder, more extroverted Macbeth who delivers all of his lines with a thunderous roar. It makes the pacing flow more quickly, and the whole film is like an unrelenting freight train from start to finish.

The direction & cinematography are excellent, making extreme use of light & shadow as well as distance & perspective. Certain shots are very exaggerated with one character close in the foreground while another is far away. One may be brightly lit whilst the other is covered in shadows. This gives the presentation a surreal, creepy vibe sort of like a Hitchcockian horror flick. Sets are enormous, cold and minimal.

I only took off a few points for some of the performances that were unconvincing and (this is nitpicking) several famous lines that were altered, whether deliberately or by accident. For example the famous line "Lay on, Macduff, and damned be him who first cries 'Hold! enough!'" is inexplicably cut short to "Damned be him who first cries 'Hold! enough!'" thereby losing its rhyme & rhythm. I caught 1 or 2 other instances of that. It bothered me because this is the only Shakespeare play that I actually read & remembered from high school. If I can remember the lines, why can't they??

Oh, I also took off a point because the 3 witches were way too hot. I mean, homina homina, but in the original play they're supposed to be spooky bearded hags, not swingin' 60s go-go chicks!

Final note about the picture quality... This is a public domain film which means there are a lot of lousy copies floating around. As far as I know, it has never been properly remastered. My copy is on the "Great Cinema: 15 Classic Films" DVD, and the quality leaves a bit to be desired. But for 5 bucks you can't go wrong. Check it out if you get a chance.

'Macbeth' is such a great play, one of Shakespeare's most famous, quoted and studied for good reason. That is one reason to see any film or production of it. My other main reason for seeing this 1961 'Macbeth' was for Sean Connery early on in his career (pre-stardom), such a charismatic actor with many memorable performances (including the definitive interpretation of James Bond). Wanted to see how he would fare in the difficult title role.

On the most part, he fares surprisingly well. Though it is a performance that generally is better than the production itself, which is still decent and is worth watching if one wants to be an older staging of 'Macbeth' but those that prefer to have their productions more visually appealing may want to find another production perhaps. To me, it was interesting if not a great one and Orson Welles, Roman Polanski, Akira Kurosawa as directors and also Ian McKellen with Judi Dench are a little more ideal.

Connery is one of the better things about this 'Macbeth', some occasional ill at ease moments early on aside. As has been said already, he is a more extroverted and almost more thunderous Macbeth to usual but his intense charisma even early on still shines through and brings enough nuance to the solliloquies. Zoe Caldwell matches him equally well as an imperious and at times chilling Lady Macbeth, and they are on fire in their chemistry together in especially their plotting. William Needles' Banquo is suitably noble and Ted Follows moves as Macduff.

While not being crazy on the production values overall, the use of light and shadow was highly effective. There are cuts here, which will not please those that like their adaptations/productions unabridged, but it didn't affect the story at all which was still easy to follow and flowed well. Very little disjoint here. The staging and character interaction are mostly very good, especially in the Macbeth and Lady Macbeth scenes and the scene between Macbeth, Banquo and Fleance.

The low budget does show sadly. Not the costumes but in the static video directing and the sets, which could have been effective in their minimalism but instead looked simplistic, too stark and under-budgeted. The witches' scenes all look cheap in particular. While the cuts don't affect the drama, there are simplified changes to the text that both take one out of the setting and disrupt the rhythm.

Although the lead roles are fine the more secondary roles come over as bland. Didn't like the interpretation of the witches at all, nowhere near creepy or foreboding enough and overacted which really undermines the tension and makes Macbeth's reactions to what they're saying not make much sense. Their scenes and the Banquo's ghost scene, the latter being not an easy scene to nail and have seen it done badly many times, are on the amateurish side.

Concluding, worth seeing but not one of the essential productions of 'Macbeth'. 6/10