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A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Aspect Ratio: 1.66:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569591226
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, NTSC
Item Dimensions: 100
Label: Warner Home Video
Languages: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 1.0English (Subtitled), French (Subtitled), Portuguese (Subtitled),
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
MPN: 65912
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: August 14, 2007
Running Time: 143 minutes
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: October 30, 1935
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Editorial Review:
James Cagney and Mickey Rooney romping in a Shakespearian fairyland? This could only be A Midsummer Night's Dream, Warner Bros.' 1935 attempt at classing up the proletarian studio. The legendary German stage director Max Reinhardt had produced the play at the Hollywood Bowl to enchanted, sold-out audiences, and Warners decided to hand Reinhardt the keys to the studio (along with fellow Germans William Dieterle, co-director, and Erich Wolfgang Korngold, who adapted Mendelssohn's music). Reinhardt created an eye-popping phantasmagoria, a movie laced with sparkling sequins, flying fairies, and moon-kissed forests. As for the words, Reinhardt had a collection of Warners studio players, notably James Cagney as Bottom, whose playing of "Pyramus and Thisby" with Joe E. Brown is perhaps the movie's comic high point. The other actors are decidedly varied, and they tend to be overwhelmed by the production design. Not so Mickey Rooney, whose performance as Puck is a feral, antic act of imagination (he was 14 during filming); picture a boy raised by wolves who somehow memorized Shakespeare. His Puck growls and screams and mocks the drama of the other characters, a little postmodern imp before his time. (Critic David Thomson called this Puck "truly inhuman, one of the cinema's most arresting pieces of magic"). The rest of the movie comes to earth with some regularity, but it's a one-of-a-kind production, and a reminder of the lavish, unreal possibilities within a movie studio. --Robert Horton
Love is blind fickle and true. And under the sway of capricious fairies it becomes blinder ( a queen romances as donkey) more fickle (best friends swoon over each other's beau) and truest of all (lovers repledge their devotion). "Lord what fools these mortals be!" in Shakespeare's bewitching comedy!Running Time: 143 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA UPC: 012569591226 Manufacturer No: 65912
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Shakespeare Collides With Ziegfeld's Follies
Now I know why this movie failed in the theaters. First of all - Shakespeare's plays with their Elizabethan English are too hard to understand by semi literate American audiences, especially of the 1930's. Second of all, there were way too many special effects, music, and dance numbers right out of Vaudeville. Thirdly, some of the fairies looked like something out of a nightmare of Dante's Inferno, appearing quite grotesque. Fourth, the adults and children were so scantily clad I imagine the Catholic ... Read More
Rating:  - Enchanting and funny
I was fortunate to be able to see this version of A Midsummernight's Dream on the big screen of the local university's auditorium, many years ago. It was absolutely wonderful. I have seen many other versions since, but this black-and white rendition remains the best, to this day. I own a copy on VHS, but I'm happy to see that it is now finally available on DVD.
Rating:  - Good for the time in which it was made.
A Midsummer Night's Dream I laughed at this very funny movie but doubt I will ever watch it again. While I love many of the stars in it it was just a little bit crazy for me.
If you like old movies and love to see the advances they made for this year this really does show what you want.
Rating:  - Shakespeare's Phantom Menace?
Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream has it all wrong. While the mechanicals and fairies are both strong, and important, aspects to the play, they ultimately are subordinate to the story of the lovers. Reinhardt plays the lovers down, plays them loosely, cuts their lines, allows them to ham it up, and all to serve his interest in making the fairy-scenes the apparent matter of his production.
The fairy scenes are pretty, and the music (though not originally written for this film) is wonderful. ... Read More
Rating: - WARNER'S "PRESTIGE" FOLLY - ABSOLUTELY WONDERFUL !
A beautiful print with excellent extras. One could certainly quibble about whether or not it's "Shakespeare" - But who cares, it's fantastically conceived and BEAUTIFULLY photographed. The cast is eclectic, to say the least - But in nutty sort of way, inspired (Rooney). The Korngold score is a treasure from beginning to end (adapted with great skill from several of Menddelssohn's works - A not totally successful reconstruction of the score can be had on CD {CPO}, but there ARE pleasures to found in it).
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