Hamlet

Production

Two Cities Films produced Hamlet through the Rank Organisation, releasing it in May 1948. Laurence Olivier directed himself in the title role and substantially trimmed Shakespeare’s text. Walter Plasse photographed the film in deep-focus black and white inside Elsinore-like castle sets.

Story

Prince Hamlet returns to Denmark for his father’s funeral and finds his uncle Claudius on the throne and married to his mother. The ghost of the dead king reveals that Claudius poisoned him, and Hamlet wavers between vengeance, philosophy, and feigned madness.

Reception

Hamlet became the first non-American film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture and the first sound film of a Shakespeare play to do so. Olivier won Best Actor, and the production helped establish a tradition of British Shakespearean cinema for the next half century.