Inside the Great Hall of the castle, the court is celebrating the marriage of Gertrude ( Eileen Herlie) and King Claudius ( Basil Sydney) old King Hamlet has died apparently of an accidental snakebite, and his wife, Gertrude, has, within a month of the tragedy, married the late King's brother. Suddenly, all three see the Ghost, and Horatio demands that the ghost speak. Marcellus then arrives with the skeptical Horatio ( Norman Wooland), Prince Hamlet's friend. The action begins on the battlements of Elsinore where a sentry, Francisco ( John Laurie), is relieved of his watch (and questioned if he has seen anything) by another sentry, Bernardo ( Esmond Knight), who, with yet another sentry, Marcellus ( Anthony Quayle), has twice previously seen the Ghost of King Hamlet. The film follows the overall story of the play, but cuts nearly half the dialogue and leaves out two major characters.

his liberties with the text, however, are sure to disturb many.' Plot Laurence Olivier leaves no doubt that he is one of our greatest living actors. Milton Shulman wrote in The Evening Standard: 'To some it will be one of the greatest films ever made, to others a deep disappointment. However, it proved controversial among Shakespearean purists, who felt that Olivier had made too many alterations and excisions to the four-hour play by cutting nearly two hours' worth of content. Olivier's Hamlet is the Shakespeare film that has received the most prestigious accolades, winning the Academy Awards for Best Picture and Best Actor and the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival. It is the first sound film of the play in English. Hamlet was the first British film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Hamlet was Olivier's second film as director and the second of the three Shakespeare films that he directed (the 1936 As You Like It had starred Olivier, but had been directed by Paul Czinner). Hamlet is a 1948 British film adaptation of William Shakespeare's play of the same name, adapted and directed by and starring Laurence Olivier.

Hamlet full movie