A Midsummer Night's Dream 1935
Facts About the 1935 film version of
A Midsummer Night's Dream
Previous Film Versions of A Midsummer Night's Dream
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Other Shakespeare Films from the 1930s
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Gold Diggers of 1935
It is reported that a Warner Bros. film released the same year as Dream satirized co-director Max Reinhardt. Adolph Menjou's Russian theater director in Busby Berkeley's Gold Diggers of 1935 is said to be broadly based on Reinhardt.
Competing Films
Today, most films in the United States are released on Fridays. In the thirties, release was more piecemeal, so it is not useful to discuss the films released the same day as Dream. Here are the film releases within a week of it. The only real competition was Barnaby Coast. The other films were made for 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 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) with Herman Brix and Ula Holt
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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. We begin with the children's book.
Warner Bros. Present Max Reinhardt’s Production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare adapted 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! (which starred John Wayne, who is in the photos), Little Minister (Katherine Hepburn), and an adaptation of the notorious serial The Lost City. As with most BLBs, there is text on the even numbered pages and photos from the films on most odd numbered pages. Helen Davidson used the screenplay to write this book, 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 as to how he views the play, and he 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 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 Making the Film
The making of Reinhardt's film is mythic in Hollywood. Like all myths, reports contain a lot of fiction. Dramatist Ken Ludwig added to the fiction in this 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. They 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 Ness was Joe E. Brown.
Mendelssohn in Nazi Germany
The Nazi regime continued to stage Dream without Reinhardt, who invented the Germanic staging. Nazi Germany cut the traditional music of Felix Mendelssohn used by Reinhardt on stage and in his film version. The composer was raised Lutheran, but his Jewish heritage put off Hitler and his Nazi bigots. Mendelssohn's music frequently remained part of English stagings of A Midsummer Night's Dream into the fifties.
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 sit upon. This almost certainly could not have been Shakespeare's intent. The first time the word bottom is known to have been used to mean derrière was 1794, nearly 200 years after Shakespeare wrote this play.
