Page 137 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

126 / Shakespeare in the Movies

tions with the entire country. On June 30 and July 1, seven elec-
tronic Theatrofilm cameras were assembled in the orchestra and the
stage's wings, recording three separate performances (one matinee,
two evenings) from beginning to end, with the audience present. One
camera remained close on Burton, another in medium on Burton and
costars, a third for long shots, etc. This recording, akin to a TV
image, was fed to a truck outside the theater, where a new process
called Electronovision allowed for immediate transference to 35-
millimeter film. The three recordings were quickly edited into a
single print. A thousand prints were struck by Warner Bros., and in
late September, Hamlet was shown four times (two matinees, two
evenings) at theaters nationwide for one-fourth of what people had
paid to see the show on Broadway.
The intended effect, as Robert Koehler later reflected in the Los
Angeles Times, was "to create the illusion of putting moviegoers in
a seat at the Lunt-Fontanne." The experiment did not work. As
critic Bob Thomas noted, "With normal stage lighting, the sets were
murky much of the time, the actors [voices] often indistinct."
Leonard Harris added: "Apparently unsure whether he wanted to try
movie techniques or merely record the stage play, Bill Colleran, the
film director, tried a bit of each and ended up with an unhappy
medium" that even provincial audiences sensed was neither fish nor
fowl. Rather than a happy blend of the two, this proved a sorry bas-
tard form.
The film did rate as a commercial success. With the $1.1 million
cost returning grosses of $6.5 million, Hollywood briefly hoped the
technique might provide a new source of revenue while at the same
time raising the nation's level of theater sophistication. In fact, most
ticket buyers had been attracted by the novelty (much like the brief-
lived 3-D phenomenom of the mid-fifties) and by Burton's box-office
appeal. One year later, an attempt to similarly share Olivier's Oth-
ello (see chapter 9 for details) did less business; a third, of the
Anthony Newley-Lesley Bricusse musical Stop The World—I Want
to Get Off!, bombed. The concept would not take hold until, a quar-
ter century later, pay-per-view allowed the public to see such broad-
casts in the privacy of their homes (and often live, which added to
the impact). The smaller TV screen proved more conducive to such
a concept, since a huge theatrical image blew already larger than life
stage performances out of proportion.
Whatever its aesthetic failings, the production had a major impact
on the public's perception of Hamlet. Millions of people saw a per-