Century Film Project

This Shakespeare play remains a popular film subject, with its themes of gender confusion and romantic frustration, blended into a safe, comedic resolution. This was its first known film rendering, and it suggests that by 1910 we are moving into a different context for silent film adaptations of classical works. This time, we get a recognized “star” in the lead: Florence Turner, who would be in hundreds of movies during her career, and had appeared as Titania in the earlier “Midsummer Night’s Dream.” Moreover, this is the first effort I’ve seen to preserve some of the Shakespearean dialogue by placing it into intertitles, about halfway through the film. This movie also generally preserves the full storyline, although it is much shortened to a length of twelve minutes, and the titles give enough information for an audience with no prior knowledge of the play to follow along. One gets the sense that, rather than simply giving a vignette or snippet of the Bard, it was the director’s hope here to actually render the play in the new medium of film. By modern standards, it may be only marginally successful, but it still seems like a sophisticated use of the technology to present something complete in itself.

Director: Charles Kent

Starring: Florence Turner

Run Time: 12 Min 27 seconds

You can watch it for free: here.