HAMLET

Sir Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons

Learning Corporation; Directed by Sir Laurence Olivier

Black and White; Not Rated; 156 minutes; 1948

Sir Laurence Olivier created perhaps the cinema's finest and most enduring of any Shakespeare play. A simple craggy and bleak set casts a shadow over this dark drama. The moving camera is used merely to capture mood and enhance the famous soliloquies through the use of close-ups. Olivier as Hamlet is breathtaking and Jean Simmons is an exquisitely beautiful and sensitive Ophelia, whose scene of madness is truly startling.