A Midsummer Night’s Dream
The uproarious 1935 Academy Award winning film
Considering that A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the most movie-ish of all Shakespeare’s tales, it figures that Max Reinhardt’s lively adaptation absolutely delivers. Full of buzzing sprites and mischievous jesters, the 1935 take on the adventure of four young Athenian lovers and actors has all the fantasy and fairy dust of the original with Mickey Rooney playing Puck to James Cagney’s Bottom. The cinematography even snagged a little gold statue, but we were slayed by the rhapsodic score and that gauzy black and white film stock. Haunting and intelligent, this pre-war staging was the best of the Bard. General admission."Breathtakingly beautiful."