Hello folks! Francis here again. On this date in 1616, the greatest playwright in the English language passed away. Yup, William Shakespeare. If you get the opportunity, raise a glass to the Bard.

This anniversary of course grants me the opportunity to wax eloquent upon my love for Shakespeare once again, something just like Sir Kenneth Branagh himself, I can trace back to one memorable moment.

For me it was not a live performance (that would come much later) but a movie. Still the greatest of them all (and the most performed of all of Shakespeare’s plays) I’m talking about Sir Laurence Olivier’s 1955 Richard III.

For me, it all started by picking up a VHS copy off the rental shelf of a small local video store around 1990. Sir Larry was in full armor on the cover, similar to the picture shown at the top of this post, and I remembered that Richard III was a controversial king that I did not know too much about. So I thought, let’s fix that. This was before I was married, so I was living by myself in my apartment so I was able to watch the glorious technicolor spectacular uninterrupted. My life changed forever.

I quickly recorded the audio onto cassette, and I still listen to the the magnificent voices performing this wonder even to this day, to the point that I now have the entire movie essentially memorized. When Martin asks for a sound check before we record most episodes now, it is usually my imitation of Sir Larry as the hunchback king who appears.

Sir Larry poured his heart and soul into making this movie, and while his 1948 Hamlet won the Best Picture Oscar, it is this one that best showcases the talents of this amazing thespian and director. To steal a line from the movie Highlander, if there could be only one truly great Shakespearean actor for all time, and with apologies to greats such as Sir Kenneth Branagh and Sir Patrick Stewart, although they’d both probably agree with me, it is Sir Larry who rises to the top. Deservedly so I must say.

I could talk forever on the beautiful costuming, the powerful score by Sir William Walton and the superb cast which included not only Sir Larry in the title role, but also Sir John Gielgud as George, Duke of Clarence, Sir Ralph Richardson as the Duke of Buckingham, Sir Cedric Hardwick as Edward IV and the young and eternally beautiful Claire Bloom as Anne Neville, with whom Sir Larry had a tempestuous affair during the production of the movie. When the two of them perform the two ‘wooing scenes’ early on, the sexual chemistry is evident, just as the Bard had intended, if you pay close attention to the text.

Thanks to the great folks at Criterion, the movie was fully restored to its original glory about eight years ago, with many pieces having been missing for many years due to various edits for television broadcasts, the most notable being on NBC on a Sunday afternoon in 1956. The British Film Institute stated that this one performance may have done more to popularize the Bard’s work with modern American audiences than any other. Given as good as this one is, I would tend to agree.

The best option to catch the film currently is on HBO Max, if you have the subscription like I do, but you can always pay the $3.99 price to grab it on many of the other streaming services. Should you care for the Blu-Ray there are tons of special features there very much worth your time. In any case, turn on the captions to catch the language well, remove all distractions and enjoy 161 minutes of pure magic.

Of course I have to show a clip, but there are so many options I have a hard time selecting just one. For some honorable mentions, Sir John Gielgud ‘s performance in recounting Clarence’s Dream is amazingly chilling, as is Alec Clunes‘ performance as Lord Hastings in the Conference Scene at the Tower. Unfortunately neither is on YouTube so you’ll need to watch the movie to see them.

In the end however, perhaps it is the end itself that is the best place to begin. Filmed on location in Spain, the climactic Battle of Bosworth Field is the highlight of a movie filled with amazing moments. Here is the very end, just before the credits roll.

Enjoy!

And to get a feel for the restoration of this masterpiece , here’s Martin Scorsese for Criterion explaining all that went into that labor of love in 2013:

And finally, this movie brought to me a love for the Wars of the Roses that stays with me even to this day. I have devoured book after book on the subject (a posting for another day) but here is our first discussion of the person of Richard and the times in which he lived, way back as episode 4!