September 29, 1948 –
Laurence Olivier’s powerful interpretation of Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane, Hamlet premiered in New York City on this day.
This is the only movie version of Hamlet that entirely omits the characters Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Laurence Olivier was severely criticized for leaving them out of the movie, as they provide many opportunities for Hamlet to behave in a sarcastically humorous way toward them, and many felt that Olivier probably would have played these moments brilliantly. However, Olivier did retain a few of Guildenstern’s lines (“put your discourse into some frame“, et cetera) and gave them to Polonius.
