"I am not a man and I'm not allowed to be a woman! - I am a toy that is not supposed to have a heart." - Hamlet (Asta Nielsen) (1881-1972).
It is good to know a little German as the titles in the free domain version I watched were not translated. Luckily the were slow enough not to have to use the pause button. The intertitles also stay up long enough to read. Soundtrack by Ambroise Thomas.
Wait, I found there is an HD restoration with the correct color tint, and it has English subtitles. The English pretty much reflects the German so if you are lazy like me you will not lose anything significant in the translation. Much better. Soundtrack by Michael Riessler. Only one hour and 51 minutes. The story moves quite fast.
There is a lot of arm flaying and other silent movie gesticulations. Also, not everything is intertitles as Laertes (Anton de Verdier) does some cussing. Hamler (Asta Nielsen) wears an overabundance of eye shadow. Maybe everyone wears too much eye shadow.
The film "Hamlet: The Drama of Vengeance" was shot at The Johannisthal Studios in Berlin.
The story varies so do not try to match this with other Hamlet versions. No ghost. No Rosencrantz or Guildenstern? At least not by name.
Old Hamlet (Paul Conradi) is bit by a venomous snake for the Castle Dungeon! Uncle Claudius (E. Von Winterstein) still suspect. Nosy Polonius (Hans Junkermann) checks out Hamlet's insanity and ends up with a nose job.
There have been women as Sarah Bernhardt who played or wanted to play Hamlet. However, in this version, the Danish queen disguises her daughter as a boy, Hamlet. Hamlet uses "his" friend Horatio, whom Hamlet secretly loves to help with the revenge plot. Shocker, when Hamlet is killed in the end Horatio finally finds out that the prince was a woman.
Continuing on this theme read the book that inspired this film "The Mystery of Hamlet: An Attempt to Solve an Old Problem" by Edward Payson Vining.
