This film is the first English sound movie version of William Shakespeare's "Hamlet".
This shorn-down version of William Shakespeare's play was criticized by purists, including Ethel Barrymore, who complained that it wasn't as faithful as the stage version produced on Broadway in 1922, in which her brother John Barrymore played Hamlet. Ethel Barrymore was the presenter of the Best Picture Oscar at the Academy Awards that year and was visibly shaken when she read out Sir Laurence Olivier's name as the winner.
This British film was the first non-American movie to win the Oscar for Best Picture.
Sir Laurence Olivier initially said that the movie had been filmed in black and white for artistic reasons. The true reason, as he later admitted, was that he was in the middle of a furious row with Technicolor.
Hamlet 1948
12 Aug 1948 ● English ● 2 hrs 34 mins
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