Hamlet

1913
Silent
96m

Johnston Forbes-Roberston gives his famous performance of Hamlet in this ambitious early Shakespeare feature

This production of Hamlet by the Hepworth Company is foremost a record of a signature performance by Johnston Forbes-Robertson, honed over many years - he first played the role in 1897. Passages such as Hamlet's famous soliloquy, while sensitively performed, tend to be speech-heavy - but the film does display cinematic ambitions in its great location work at Lulworth Cove and Hartsbourne Manor and well-choreographed action sequences such as the final duel.

This full length Hamlet was one of the first feature films ever made in Britain. A glance at the other titles - Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, East Lynne and Lorna Doone, for example - shows that producers were likely to look for tried and trusted classics as their subjects. Given the scale of investment needed to make a long film, Shakespeare was always bound to be top of the list.

Forgotten Features

A hand-picked assortment of hard-to-see British feature films, featuring mischievous mermaids, murderous minors and military mayhem.

Thanks to decades of DVD and online publishing, not to mention archive revivals and restorations, more of Britain’s screen heritage is available today than ever before. You might even be forgiven for imagining that the whole of British cinema is now just a click away.

But much of that history - from the silent era to the relatively recent past - remains out of reach. This selection from the vaults, hand-picked by the BFI's curators, goes some way to remedying that. These fresh rediscoveries offer something for all tastes: whether futuristic fantasy, battle-of-the-sexes comedy, subversive provocation or an Indian-British rarity.