The Hendersonville Film Society will show A Midsummer Night’s Dream Sunday, April 3, at 2 p.m. in the Smoky Mountain Theater at Lake Pointe Landing Retirement Community (behind Epic Cinemas), 333 Thompson St., Hendersonville.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Movie Information
In Brief: In a fit of culture, the Warner Bros. decided to go full-on prestige in 1935 by hiring in one of the most controversial — but exceedingly famous — interpreters of Shakespeare to bring his production of A Midsummer Night's Dream to the screen with the idea of using it as an artistic showcase for nearly all of their stars. (Somehow Paul Muni and Al Jolson were overlooked.) Mindful that Reinhardt was not a filmmaker, they got one of their greatest stylists, William Dieterle, to handle the cinematic end of things. The results were visually astonishing — so much so that unnominated cinematographer Hal Mohr won an Oscar from write-in votes (a unique event in Oscar history) — and aurally amazing (thanks to Felix Mendelssohn). However, the results were also dramatically uneven. James Cagney is OK as Bottom, Victor Jory and Anita Louise are exceptional as Oberon and Titania, but the rest of the cast are uneven. And then there's Mickey Rooney as Puck in a performance sure to make you long for a tranquilizer gun that would bring down a rhino. However, the film is such an amazing visual feast that it's pretty easy to overlook its flaws and just gorge on the sheer beauty.
| Score: | |
| Genre: | Comedy Romance |
| Director: | Max Reinhardt, William Dieterle |
| Starring: | James Cagney, Victor Jory, Anita Louise, Dick Powell, Olivia de Haviland, Joe E. Brown, Mickey Rooney |
| Rated: | NR |
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