Michael P. Jensen,
Freelance Writer
Facts About A Midsummer Night's Dream, a film by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, 1935
Other film versions of A Midsummer Night’s Dream
Director Country Year Features
Charles Kent USA 1909 On Silent Shakespeare DVD
Unknown France 1909 Title: Le Songe d’une Nuit d’Ete
Paulo Azzuri Italy 1913 Some footage is lost.
Stellan Rye Germany 1913 Told as a drunken dream
Hans Neumann Germany 1925 Warner Krauss played Bottom
Jir’ Trnka Czechoslovakia 1959 Animated with puppets
Peter Hall UK 1969 Based on a RSC production
Celestino Coronado Spain/UK 1984 Punk/gay version.
Adrian Noble UK 1996 Based on a RSC production
Michael Hoffman USA/UK/Italy 1999 Bottom has a wife—again.
Christine Edzard UK 2001 All parts played by children.*
* The title of Edzard’s film is The Children’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A series of Shakespeare films to star Sir Herbert Beerbohm Tree and directed by D. W. Griffith was proposed in 1915. Several plays were announced, including Dream. In the end, only Macbeth (1916) was filmed, because Tree could not master such film acting techniques as staying within the frame.
There have been numerous television versions, and two pornographic films, A Mid-Slumber Night’s Dream (1988), and A Midsummer Night’s Cream (2000). A ballet of the story choreographed by George Balanchine was filmed in 1966.
Other Shakespeare films from the 1930s
Hathili Dulhan Dir. Jeejeebhoy F. Madan 1932 Indian version of Taming of the Shrew
Bhool Bhulaiyan Dir. Jayant Desai 1933 Indian version of Comedy of Errors
Khoon Ka Khoon Dir. Sohrab Modi 1935 Indian version of Hamlet
As You Like It Dir. Paul Czinner 1936 Laurence Olivier is Orlando
Romeo and Juliet Dir. Irving Thalberg 1936 MGM’s dull spectacle
Saeed-E-Havas Dir. Sohrab Merwanji Modi 1936 Indian version of King John
Reinhardt’s colleagues and the 1922 Othello
Max Reinhardt directed Emil Jannings, Warner Krauss, and Theodore Loos at the Deutsches Theater. Jannings and Krauss had the two leads in Shakespeare’s Othello (1922), directed by Dimitri Buchowetzki. Loos played the smaller, but important role of Cassio in that film.
Gold Diggers of 1935
It is reported that a Warner Brother film released the same year as Dream satirized Max Reinhardt. Adolph Menjou’s Russian theater director in Busby Berkeley’s Gold Diggers of 1935 is supposedly based, rather broadly, on Reinhardt.
Competing Films
Today, most films in the United States are released on Fridays. In the 1930s, release was more piecemeal, so it is not useful to discuss the films released the same day at Dream. Here are the films released within a week of it. The only real competition was Barbary Coast. The other films were made for very different audiences.
Barbary Coast with Miriam Hopkins and Edward G. Robinson
Charlie Chan in Shanghai with Warner Oland and Irene Harvey
The Gay Deception with Francis Lederer and Frances Dee
Here Comes Cookie with George Burns and Gracie Allen
I Live My Life with Joan Crawford and Brian Aherne
The New Adventures of Tarzan (feature version of the serial) starring Herman Brix (who later called himself Bruce Bennett) and Ula Holt
Books Spun-Off from Reinhardt's Film
Two books were published to tie-in with the release of the film, one for children and another for adults. Their full titles are:
Warner Bros. Present Max Reinhardt’s Production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare by Helen Davidson, (New York: Engel-van Wiseman Book Cooperation, 1935).
Engel-van Wiseman used films as the source material for a series of children’s books in the Big Little Book format. Their titles include Westward, Ho! (the film starred John Wayne, who was in the photos), Little Minister (Katherine Hepburn), and an adaptation of the notorious serial The Lost City. Like BLBs, there is text on the even numbered pages, and photos from the films on most odd numbered pages. Helen Davidson used the screenplay for her version of Dream, not the finished film, so there are a number of differences between the film and this book, including some photos for scenes that were shot, but cut before the movie’s release.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare, foreword by Max Reinhardt, (New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1935).
Reinhardt’s foreword is surprisingly uninformative about how he views the play, and tells readers little about the film. There are eight production photos, all tinted green, and an illustration of Reinhardt’s conception of the play by A. B. Phillips. This is does not correspond to any scene in the play, and includes characters who do not appear together, so it is unlikely to be a production design.
Shakespeare in Hollywood -- A Play About the Making of the Film
The making of Reinhardt’s film is mythic in Hollywood, and like all myths, reports contain a lot of fiction. Dramatist Ken Ludwig added to the fiction by writing a play, first performed at the Arena Stage in Washington D. C. on 5 September 2003. It was directed by Kyle Donnelly. Ludwig’s premise is that the real Oberon and Puck appear on the set and are cast in the film, then create havoc for censor Will Hays after filming is completed. The play is a farce that duplicates some of the plot points of Shakespeare’s work, but in a very different setting. Robert Prosky, a regular at the Arena Stage, played Reinhardt. Jack Warner was portrayed by Rick Foucheux, Will Hays by Everett Quinton, Dick Powell by David Fendig, Olivia de Havilland by Maggie Lacey, Jimmy Cagney by Adam Richman, and Hugh Nees was Joe E. Brown.
Mendelssohn in Nazi Germany
The Nazi regime continued to stage Dream without Reinhardt, and also without the music of Felix Mendelssohn. The composer was raised a Lutheran, but his Jewish heritage put off Hitler and the Nazi bigots. Mendelssohn’s music was still frequently part of English stagings into the 1950s.
The Meaning of Bottom
What is in a name? Bottom the weaver is turned into an ass (donkey) in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This is often assumed to be a pun, since today bottom is a nice word for ass, that thing we all sit upon. This almost certainly could not have been Shakespeare’s intent. The first time Bottom is known to have been used to mean derrière was 1794, roughly 200 years after Shakespeare wrote his play.
Click here to return to Home Page
Now that you have seen what he can do, hire Mike to write for you. Contact him at jensensh@hotmail.com
These faces were put together in support of the article "A Midsummer Night’s Dream: How German Expressionism Dominated
this Classical 1935 Fantasy! ," published in Filmfax # 106, April/June 2005. These facts were not used in the article, but are offered here as a supplement to Shakespeare film scholars who work on this movie.
Copyright 2009 Michael P Jensen, Freelance Writer. All rights reserved.