As You Like It

As You Like It
1936 - 20th Century Fox
Directed By Paul Czinner



SYNOPSIS

An evil duke takes his brother's land and exiles his family. The banished duke's daughter Rosalind (Elisabeth Bergner) stays with the evil duke's daughter Celia. Rosalind gets banished and Celia and her flee the palace for the woods. They run into Orlando (Lawrence Olivier,) who Rosalind has fallen for. Rosalind, however, has disguised herself as a man and cannot pursue Orlando directly. But he has family problems of his own to contend with. Will they find happiness?



MY THOUGHTS

This should have been called As You Hate It.

You can't fault the script. It was William Shakespeare after all, adapted for the screen by J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan. But the real problems stem from the direction and actors.

The direction is boring, like it was shooting a stage performance of the play. The camera occasionally moves. The camera only moves in for a closeup when an actor is alone, or delivers a long soliloquy.

Laurence Olivier stars as Orlando. He's the actor/filmmaker most associated with Shakespeare on the big screen. This was his first film of the bard's work. He's the least offensive of the performers, though even he is guilty of some of their same traits.

The rest of the actors prance about pompously in a VERY hammy theatrical style. Their smugness really shines anytime they give a soliloquy and all attention turns to them and they get a generous closeup. They deliver every word like it was the most important and profound thing ever said. It becomes obnoxious after 5 minutes... and intolerable after an hour and a half.

Elisabeth Bergner (as Rosalind) is a big offender. She looks and sounds like she's doing a bad Greta Garbo impression, even as she's trying to impersonate a man. No one even guesses this very feminine person is actually a woman. It's on par with Lois Lane not realizing Clark Kent and Superman are one in the same.

I truly wished that this was one of Shakespeare's tragedies, instead of a comedy, so every character would suffer a very painful death at the end... but this sadly didn't happen.