ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

ChampDavSlim The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

Tobias Burrows It's easily one of the freshest, sharpest and most enjoyable films of this year.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Red-125 Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968) was directed by Peter Hall for the Royal Shakespeare Company. It features some truly great actors: David Warner as Lysander, Diana Rigg as Helena, Helen Mirren as Hermia, Ian Richardson as Oberon, Judi Dench as Titania, and Ian Holm as Puck.MND is a perfect play for film. This MND was directed by a highly talented Shakespearean director, and had brilliant casting. It had to be great, right? Wrong. First of all, this is--literally--the worst print I've ever watched. As another reviewer pointed out, it looked as if it had been decaying in a dank basement for 40 years. This isn't Abel Gance's "Napoleon," patched together from various sources and very, very old. This film was made in 1968! How could RSC release a print like this?Another problem--contemporary costumes. Midsummer Night's Dream is supposed to be set in Athens, but everyone knows that it really takes place in England, and most directors set it in Elizabethan England. That's probably how people saw it in Shakespeare's time, and that setting will always work. Hall set his play in "contemporary" England. The problem is that "contemporary" costumes look very dated after 50 years. So, seeing the women actors in miniskirts and go-go boots looks really, really funny.Most of the play is set in a forest, and the young actors get lost, stumble about, fall into streams, etc. OK--so we don't want the young women to look like they just stepped out of a bath. But, director Hall has smeared their faces with mud. We can't really see them anyway, because of the print, but what we can see looks like Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren prepared for a commando raid. Was it really necessary to hide the actors' faces?The movie is true to the text, which is good, but there's so much hand-held camera work, and so many jump-cuts, that nothing hangs together. My wife and a friend both gave up after the first half-hour, saying that the film was too painful to watch. I watched until the end, so that I could write this review. I love Shakespeare, and I love MND, but I don't love what Hall did with it. It's more like Midsummer Night's Nightmare. What a waste of talent!

Syl THere are three British dames in this film adaptation: Dame Judi Dench, Dame Diana Rigg and Dame Helen Mirren. While the cast is outstandingly directed by Sir Peter Hall, the costumes appear to be weak and cheaply made. When Titania played by Dame Judi Dench kisses a horses' behind, you can see his eyes. The costumers dressed Titania as a green fairy which was just painted on like silly. The William Shakespeare play is a festive comedy for the light-hearted and entertainment of its audience. It's not an expensive production but it's worth watching to see three Dames in their younger days. Everybody in the cast has been part of the Royal Shakespeare Company and are veteran actors by now. THe play does entertain and I can poke fun at the cheap costumes and lack of expense towards the production. It's nice to see Dame Judi Dench before she was ever a Dame. Not even an O.B.E. in this 1968 production. She appears to enjoy playing the role. Dame Helen Mirren is also cast as the young Helena who seeks to be in love. I probably got the names wrong but it's Shakespeare, who can remember?

David Edward Martin I only saw this during the single showing CBS gave it way back when. I had no idea what the play was about but as a Diana Rigg fan, I was curious what she had been up since abruptly leaving The Avengers. I only saw it on a 19' BW TV. I had no idea that some of the Faerie were green.... The things you learn at this site!Decades later, looking at the cast list, I'm really eager for a chance to see this again! This is one of those productions where everyone was unknown then and famous now. I'm also curious about the relationship of CLARE DENCH and EMMA DENCH to the now-world-famous Judi Dench (I'm guessing nieces).Postscript, April 2007-- Last November I finally got a chance to see this nearly-forgotten flick. The film quality is a bit off, with some noticeable color shifting. But what the heck! It's probably the only version available....It's a very, very dated production. Hippolyta wears a classic mid-60s Mod outfit and some of the outfits struck me as very Hippie era. This may be the effect they wanted, a sort of psychedelic Shakespeare.Oh man, what a cast! So many future stars a decade before they would finally hit it big-- Ian Holm, David Warner, Helen Mirren as an ingénue, Judi Dench in the nude?!?!?!Hopefully the BBC saved the negative or at least a decent copy of this so that someday they release a decent copy of this.

Jon Kolenchak This film has a dream cast. Diana Rigg, Judi Dench, Helen Mirren, and Paul Rogers are especially fine. Yet, the film moves clumsily along with all the cinematographic finesse of a home video. So much of the production values of this film are just plain sloppy. Sloppy makeup and sloppy attention to costume detail are just the beginning of the list of faults. Exactly when was this story supposed to happen? It could have been an Elizabethian period piece, yet methinks it could have been the 1960's based on the women's short skirts and very 'mod' boots. There were touches of the directing style of Ed Wood, also. We enter the forest and it's dark. A few scenes later, the sun is shining, then it's dark again. I can't let this review go by without echoing another reviewer's comment -- What exactly were they doing to get so dirty?!?I did find a way to completely enjoy this film. Don't watch it -- listen to it. It works much better as an audioplay than as a film.