Many consider Shakespeare's plays to be masterpieces of entertainment, while many others think them an archaic institution kept alive only by the force of tradition. The 1936 movie adaptation of "As You Like It" lends support to the latter view and will make proponents of the former cringe in embarrassment. This film was put together with no art: the lines are delivered in such a way that one suspects the actors forgot they were on film and not in a theater, the costumes and sets are almost a parody of the floweriest of Shakespeare performances, and the acting is atrocious. To better throw these failures into sharp relief is the movie's almost total lack of musical scoring. In this poor man's Shakespeare, it is fitting that the main character Rosalind should be played by a poor woman's Garbo, the ever-giddy Elisabeth Bergner. As her love interest Orlando, Laurence Olivier is young, pretty, and very athletic, but his athleticism is the only life in this picture, just as his low-key delivery of his lines is the only acting in this movie not appallingly overwrought. The jester and his lass also have some charm, however, even if they are stagy and melodramatic, which convinces me that some weak approximation of entertainment could be made of this sad piece of film-making if it only had a Rosalind who could carry it. I wonder whether this film would even exist had the director not been Bergner's husband.
Review of As You Like It
