Film versions of Shakespeare's plays are almost always lousy, so it's something of a pleasure to encounter one that's watchable. Laurence Olivier's *Richard III* is certainly that, though don't expect the grandeur or cinematic excitement of his own *Henry V*. Much of this has to do with the fact that *Henry V* is simply a better play than *Richard III*, the latter being, in all likelihood, the fourth play Shakespeare ever wrote, immediately following the *Henry VI* trilogy. While *Richard III* is a grand, culminating sequel to that early trilogy, and while it remains the most staged play in the entire canon, the fact remains that it is an apprentice work, heavily tainted with Marlowe's influence. Shakespeare hadn't found his true voice yet.
Olivier, director and ruthless adapter, seems to instinctively know which parts to cut. He had the good sense to eliminate the part of the tiresome, hectoring Queen Margaret (the widow of King Henry VI), with her reams of Seneca-imitation blank verse and endless imprecations ("O you bloody dog!" etc.). Several scenes in the work by Shakespeare are marred with a Senecan sing-song repetition between the characters; i.e.: BOY. "What child ever suffered such a loss?" / QUEEN. "What wife ever suffered such a loss?" / DUCHESS. "What mother ever suffered such a loss" and so on and so forth. Olivier gets rid of this sort of nonsense, and retains the forceful passages and the overall zip to the piece. For instance, he retains the famous wooing scene between Richard and the Lady Anne, almost uncut. Indeed, all the best scenes are virtually uncut, and Olivier also reaches back into *Henry VI Part 3* to open the movie and extend Richard's opening monologue. What BAD adapters, like Kenneth Branagh, try to do is to cram in the whole play, lightly skimming across each scene, retaining the best nuggets while losing the full richness of a scene's context. Such a method also mangles the majestic rhythm of Shakespearian verse. Olivier, on the other hand, simply excises the bad scenes, and films the good scenes in their entirety. Finally, it's a joy to see Olivier tip his hat to English stage tradition by including some famous interpolations from Colley Cibber ("Off with his head! So much for Buckingham!") and other stage directors from between Shakespeare's time up to 1955.
One can't discuss a movie like this without mentioning the acting -- which, in this case, means Olivier, solely. Encumbered with a bluish-black page-boy wig and a glued-on long pointy nose, his Richard looks like the Wicked Witch of the West and sounds like her, too: a nasty-tempered old crone. He delivers the verse with a swishy, rat-a-tat-tat petulance. It's a thoroughly amusing performance, marred by the last sequences, when he's on Bosworth Field fighting Richmond: suddenly, Richard becomes a chivalric hero, a jarring switch from what we've seen from him the previous two hours. In fact, the entire film is brought heavily down by the outdoor sequences, which appear to have been shot in central Spain, what with the sand and scrub and occasional cactus. The movie fares much better within its purposely artificial and stagey confines: the drywall castle walls, glowing with Technicolor blue; the ornate and quite accurate costuming; the gloomy dungeons; the princess-palace boudoirs; that gigantic papier-mache gold crown hanging from the roof. Olivier didn't exactly have a big budget, and necessity is the mother of invention.
One DOES wish the other performers left even half the impression that Olivier leaves on us. Gielgud is evocative as Richard's doomed brother Clarence, but he exits too early. Ralph Richardson is ruinously miscast as political gangster Buckingham, one of Richard's allies. Alec Clunes is atrocious as Hastings. Claire Bloom is adequate -- in that certain Old Vic manner -- as Anne. But in fairness to Olivier, Shakespeare wasn't interested in these other characters, except as they figure into Richard's devious plans for securing the Crown. Later in his career, Shakespeare would grace the titanic figure of Hamlet with a supporting cast including the likes of Gertrude, Claudius, Polonius, Ophelia, Laertes, and Horatio. In *Richard III*, we get . . . Catesby. It's instructive to see that the world's greatest writer had to work hard to become a genius.
But this is still a good movie, and Olivier (and Richard) are enjoyable enough. 5 stars out of 10.
