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Great Dane
Sir Laurence Olivier's 1948 version of Hamlet sets the standard for film version of the play about the Danish prince. Much as he did with Henry V, Sir Laurence exercises some significant plot points and characters from Shakespeare's play, but it is done to concentrate the focus of the film on the brooding prince. Make no mistake about it, this is Sir Laurence's film all the way. He brings an amazing breadth to character who disintegrates from a happy and sensitive man into a tormented and lost soul. There are some other great performances including Eileen Herlie who plays the Queen and is Sir Laurence's mother in the film despite being thirteen years his junior, a young Jean Simmons is luminous as Ophelia and Basil Sydney is effective as the villainous Claudius. Horror film notables Peter Cushing and the now ubiquitous Christopher Lee also appear as does Stanley Holloway. The film was a major success and it helped earn Sir Laurence his only competitive Oscars in 1948 as Best Actor and as producer on the Best Picture award in addition to two others for Best Art Direction (B&W) and Best Costume Design (B&W). He is also the only Best Actor Oscar winner to direct himself to the award.

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Hamlet's Greatest Hits
It seems almost heretical to say over fifty years after Olivier's Oscar-winning film has passed indisputedly into the realm of "classic," but the fact of the matter is that this is a badly butchered and tolerably performed adaptation of Shakespeare's play. Olivier and text editor Alan Dent cut the script to the bone, eliminating not only the character of Fortinbras (who is a common casulaty of the editor's pen), but Rosencrantz and Guildestern (who are indispensible to depicting a complete version of the story).

Most of the acting is forgettable, with only Academy Award nominated Jean Simmons making any impact as the tragic Ophelia. Olivier is frankly wooden in the role, making one realize that Hamlet was never really his part and that posterity would have been better served if he's left this play alone and instead filmed one of his stage successes such as Macbeth or Titus Andronicus.

Olivier's success comes as a director rather than an actor, depicting Elsinore as a gloomy and forbidding haunted castle. The drum representing the ghost's heartbeat is a masterfully effective device and the look of the film can only be described as wonderfully Shakespearean.

While the virtues of the film are spotty, one scene must surely be ranked as among the greatest ever committed to celluloid: the duel between Hamlet and Laertes in Act V. It is hard to imagine any other production (stage or film) competing the excitement or tension of this compelling action, and Olivier's celebrated leap from a high tower to finally do away with Claudius is worthy of every platitude it has received. (Compare this to the ludricrous display of Kenneth Branaugh throwing a magic rapier from across the palace to hit a super hero's bulls-eye into Claudius' heart in the vulgar and miscast 1996 film and you'll see what I mean.)

Olivier's "Hamlet" was an important milestone in it's day, but is badly dated and does not stand up well to more recent productions such as Derek Jacobi's 1978 BBC production with the pre-Star Trek Patrick Stewart as a magnificent Claudius (in my mind the definitive screen "Hamlet") or the filmed record of the John Gielgud/Richard Burton 1964 Broadway production (which is truer to the play's theatrical roots). Olivier's film is indeed a classic, but it brings to mind Mark Twain's definition of the word: "a book that someone praises but doesn't read."

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Another good Lawrence Olivier adaptation of Shakespeare
This review is for the Criterion Collection DVD edition of the film.

In this release Olivier's second adaptation of a Shakespeare play, Olivier again plays the title role. Unlike the previous film, this one is in black and white,

It follows the story of a Danish prince bent on avenging the murder of his father by his uncle.
I would assume that most people know the plot so that is all I will say about it,

The DVD has no special features which is not normal for a Criterion release.