Product Details

• Actors: Derek Godfrey, Barbara Jefford, Nicholas Selby, Hugh Sullivan, David Warner
• Format: Color, NTSC
• Rated: Unrated
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Water Bearer Films
• VHS Release Date: November 11, 1998
• Run Time: 124 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302940605
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #215,918 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

This 1968 Royal Shakespeare Company film version of the Bard's comedy is a lost cause. Directed by Peter Hall, the effort is choppy and distracting, with lines intentionally rushed and natural exteriors often overwhelming any focus on characters or story turns. The cast of outstanding names may reel one in, but there is nothing whole cloth about this project, leaving one mostly to marvel at the way Diana Rigg, Ian Holm, Judi Dench (in scanty costume), and Helen Mirren looked three decades ago. --Tom Keogh

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fun! Plus, seeing mega-stars of today 30 years ago, cool!, May 18, 1999

By 

Janet Snyder (Austin, Texas) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Midsummer Night's Dream [VHS] (VHS Tape)

It's first of all, Midsummer Night's Dream, always a winner. But also, this film is full of some magnificent stars when they were young.. Diana Rigg -- if she were all ya got, that would be enough. However, you get Ian Holm, who was the android in the first Aliens movie and also in Branagh's Henry V, and many other wonderful shows. Then, a young Dame Judi Dench.. a great performance and she's nearly nude to boot!!

And if you're a fan of the british comedy Keeping Up Appearances, you get a treat of watching a young Clive Swift (Richard in KUA).

This is fun, campy, and well deserving to be a keeper. Someone complained about the quality.. yes, this transfer of film to video has a couple of old-age problems, but they are way too few to notice by the discriminating eye.

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Love It or Hate It -- But Don't Miss It, May 14, 2000

By 

Gillian M. Kendall (Leeds, MA United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Midsummer Night's Dream [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This movie is awful. This movie is brilliant. Either way, Peter Hall brings *A Midsummer Night's Dream* off the screen and into your gut. The trick lies in enjoying the sensation of being disoriented: the film opens; it rains English rain; an English bird chirps; we see a stately English mansion; the word on the screen reads "ATHENS". The joke has begun.

But the film is more than a joke. Hall's filming constantly jars the viewer and wakes him/her up to the fact that logic and continuity are just concepts that we impose on an essentially chaotic world. At one moment Lysander and Hermia are in the court -- cut to them in a boat (although no time appears to have passed). Helena recites a soliloquy and, while doing so, pops up disconcertingly next to a pillar and then a bush and then a tree. We see Titania and Oberon run towards each other and come face to face -- only to cut to a view of them running towards each other all over again. Time, as in *Hamlet*, is out of joint. The performances are muted, almost sullen. The atmosphere, dark. And everyone gets muddy.

This film is not light and bright and sparkling, but it's a treat to see young Helen Mirren, Diana Rigg, Ian Holm and Judi Dench (watch her age, classically, through *Henry V*, *Hamlet* and *Shakespeare in Love*). The film, too, reveals how embedded in culture our Shakespeare is: the women wear eyeliner a la sixties; Hippolyta is in a leather miniskirt and go-go boots, and the fairies are very green partially naked flower children. The magic plant, love-in-idleness, is the drug of choice. Enjoy this dark ride through *A Midsummer Night's Dream.* Better yet, make an enormous bowl of popcorn and watch it back-to-back with the new version starring Michelle Pfeiffer. Do, however, make sure it's a very big bowl of popcorn.

25 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This adaptation is outstanding!!, January 4, 2002

By 

Andrew Clark Adair (Brooklyn, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Midsummer Night's Dream [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I just had to weigh in when I read the wide range of opinions posted regarding this film -- most seem to have strong feelings about it, either favorable or decidedly not so. OK, so the film quality is not ideal, and the jerky camera shots are intermingled with cheesy special effects... so what, the ACTING is excellent! The feeling and expression behind each and every actor and actress in this production is sincere and intelligent. Unlike certain "hot" actors on the current scene (Ahem... Mr. Branagh), these young players (many of whom have become the revered masters of today) deliver the goods with moderation, humility, humor, intellect, and yes, passion. They are also all eminently well trained in the classic style (it is the Royal Shakespeare Company, after all) and it shows. Throw all the modern special effects and scenery to the dogs... Fine acting like this is all I'll ever want.