Director: Philip Saville
Main Cast: Christopher Plummer, Robert Shaw, Alec Clunes, Michael Caine, June Tobin, Jo Maxwell Muller, Donald Sutherland
"Hamlet at Elsinore is a 1964 television version of Shakespeare's play. Produced by the BBC in association with Danish Radio, it was shown in the U.S. on NET. Broadcast a few days before Shakespeare's 400th birthday, Hamlet at Elsinore was the BBC's major contribution to the quartercentenary celebrations, as well as being a technical milestone. Up to then, television Shakespeare broadcasts were exclusively studio reconstructions or relays of live theatre productions, but this was the first time that a full-length play had been taped on location, in this case at Denmark's Kronborg Castle in Elsinore. This programme was recorded and edited on video tape and not 'filmed'. It is the longest version of the play telecast in one evening up to that time, running nearly three hours. (A 1947 telecast of the play had split it up into two ninety-minute halves over two weeks.)
The Canadian actor Christopher Plummer took the lead role as the Melancholy Dane and earned an Emmy Award nomination for his performance. In supporting roles were Robert Shaw as Claudius, Donald Sutherland as Fortinbras, Roy Kinnear as the Gravedigger and Michael Caine, in his only Shakespearean performance, as Horatio. Sutherland, Caine and Shaw were, at the time, almost completely unknown to American audiences, and just before the presentation's first U.S. telecast, Plummer began to gain popularity in the U.S. because of his appearance in the 1965 musical film The Sound of Music."
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Director: Paul Almond
Main Cast: Sean Connery, Zoe Caldwell, William Needles, Ted Follows
"The Scottish lord Macbeth, chooses evil as the way to fulfill his ambition for power. He commits regicide to become king and then furthers his moral descent with a reign of murderous terror to stay in power, eventually plunging the country into civil war. In the end, he loses everything that gives meaning and purpose to his life before losing his life itself. Macbeth, based on the play by Shakespeare, was produced in 1961 and it was a TV movie with Sean Connery as the lead character. It's not entirely a visually striking film but it does have that eerie atmosphere that makes the movie. It's gloomy which is perfect for the plot of the movie. Macbeth, is an eerie film, a film about murder, witches, and how power corrupts a person. Still to this day there are leaders that will kill for power as it was in the Medieval world. But we must remember that Macbeth is not the only accomplice, Lady Macbeth, she also hungers for power and 'helps' her husband obtain that power by using her words of crazed wisdom. So this production in particular, for being not a cinematic film isn't bad."
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Director: George SchaeferMain Cast: Maurice Evans, Judith Anderson, House Jameson
"Breaking with their usual videotape tradition, the producers of NBC television's Hallmark Hall of Fame decided to commit its 1960 production of MacBeth to film. Maurice Evans stars as the fatally ambitious Scots warrior, with Judith Anderson as Lady MacBeth and Malcolm Keen as Duncan, whom MacBeth murders in order to further his own advancement. The production was a restaging of Hall of Fame's live presentation of the play, which was telecast in 1954. So impressed were Shakespeare scholars by Evans' interpretation of Macbeth that few complaints were made about the rather ruthless cutting of the Shakespearean text. This George Schafer-directed MacBeth was eventually released theatrically in Europe, its running time expanded by outtakes and newly filmed footage." - www.allmovie.com
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Director: Andrew McCulloughMain Cast: Orson Welles, Natasha Parry, Arnold Moss, Bramwell Fletcher, Beatrice Straight
"One of the first important distinctions to be made about this version of King Lear is that it is not the same version directed by Peter Brook in 1971. Brook was responsible for the staging of this 1953 version, but it was Andrew McCullough who put it to film. Orson Welles portrays the titular character, one of the most memorable and important characters from the Shakespearean canon. The story begins with the famous request Lear makes of his daughters: to express how much they love him. In exchange, Lear will divide his land and power amongst them based on the extent of their answers. Cordelia (Natasha Parry), the youngest and the one whom Lear loves the most, answers very modestly - yet honestly - and incurs the wrath of Lear, who not only withholds his gift to her, but banishes her as well. Lear divides his lands and power between the two older daughters, Goneril (Beatrice Straight) and Regan (Margaret Phillips), who intend to take swift and complete control of their father's power almost instantaneously. Lear is reduced to an angry, bitter man who realizes too late what has happened. After a series of indignities are inflicted upon him by his daughters, he retreats into a storm, vowing revenge. This film is an above-average adaptation with a very capable cast and a well-staged presentation. The subplot of Gloucester and his sons has been removed." - www.allmovie.com
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