Let me not seem to underrate the superior intelligence that has gone into many phases of [Olivier's] filmic Hamlet; it is not an outrage on taste and achieves a few illuminated moments. But I take it as a bad movie simply because it is far more conscious of being traditional cinema than of being traditional theatre…. (p. 528)

The way in which this Hamlet best succeeds is, alas! that of a certain approved film-pattern: the action in relation to the camera movement is always tactful, physically appropriate; one never quite meets a boring staticity of image. When the movie ended, my own chief impression was, however, not of the drama itself, the strange humanity and poetic elevation, the simple depth of spirit in the work; it was merely that Hamlet's story took place, that Shakespeare's Denmark held a special castle, with such long halls and lofty ceilings, certain winding...