Page 41 - Shakespeare in the Movie From the Silent Era to Shakespeare in Love

30 I Shakespeare in the Movies

sand dollars), and a then-impressive running time of fifty-five min-
utes.
British-born actor Frederick Warde was no stranger to Shakespeare
or American audiences. He had been trouping across the United
States for half a century. (Warde accompanied Edwin Booth on that
noted actor's first tour following the death of Lincoln at the hands of
Booth's younger brother.) At age sixty-one, Warde tired of touring.
Like most stage actors of his time, he believed that accepting work
in the still-declasse medium of motion pictures was slumming, but
with his best years behind him, Warde took what he could get.
When he made this film for producer M. B. Dudley, Warde had
already completed a brief film of King Lear.
Though Life and Death's credits insist this was "based on the play
by William Shakespeare," director James Keane actually retained
only a general interpretation of Richard (here called "Gloster") as
Machiavellian, reveling in evil action. Warde winks at the moviego-
ing audience every time he dispatches another victim. Though the
filmmakers played Richard as hunchback, they wisely chose to sug-
gest deformity, having Warde lean uncomfortably rather than insert-
ing a fake hump beneath his cloak.
To make the material cinematic, the Battle of Tewksbury here
served as a sumptuous opener. Having defeated the House of Lan-
caster, Richard's brother Edward (Robert Gemp) leads his warriors
into London, where he's crowned as the first king of the House of
York. The film eliminates complex politics, focusing on the killings,
which were only suggested by Shakespeare, here played for Grand
Guignol graphicness. Henry VI is dispatched, brother Clarence (next
in line) drowns in ale, and the little princes Edward and York are
assassinated, as is ill King Edward. Although Shakespeare's poetry
was absent even from the title cards, Shakespeare's invention of a
guilty dream for Richard on the eve of Bosworth Field was retained,
allowing for some patina of psychological conception. Intriguingly,
director Keane played Richmond, ultimately vanquishing his own
star!
The concept of mixed media (incorrectly conceived as a recent
invention) was then highly popular. When Life and Death opened in
major cities, Warde made personal appearances, reciting Shakespeare
before the screening. What made Warde so beloved as a live-theater
actor (his ability to play to the house) was precisely what kept him
from succeeding as a film star. (He needed to bring down the perfor-
mance, which was magnified several times life-size on-screen.) As