Movie: (1961) A dour production of Shakespeare’s play produced for German TV. A prince returns home for his father’s funeral and doesn’t like what he finds.
First shown: June 27, 1999
Opening: Tom Servo is now Htom Sirveaux
Intro: Crow has a name change too; Mike interrupts Pearl’s plan with Three Card Monty — which she loses, allowing Mike to pick the movie. He chooses unwisely
Host segment 1: Crow and Tom’s plan to be the ghost of one of Mike’s dead relatives quickly unravels
Host segment 2: Crow and Tom give Mike a preview of their percussion version of “Hamlet”
Host segment 3: Time once again to play “Alas Poor Who?”
End: Crow and Tom show off their Hamlet action figure, with real soliloquy action; in Castle Forrester, a snotty Fortenbras demands his due
Stinger: Claudius does a double take
(415 votes, average: 3.51 out of 5)
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• I’m going to come right out and say that this episode is not nearly as bad as its reputation. Yes, the movie is particularly dour, but Kevin, in his comments on this one, is right: You can’t hurt this thing no matter how hard you try. As happens every time I see this one, I got drawn in to the classic tale, which for me was made all the more fun by the overlay of some pretty solid riffing. The host segments, aren’t bad either. I know plenty of you can’t wait to start trashing this one, but I’m not on board. That said, I don’t have a lot else to say about this one.
• Kevin’s thoughts are here.
• This episode was included in Rhino’s “Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection, Vol. 4.”
• Callback in the opening host segment: “You think you can take me? Go ahead on.” (Final Justice)
• I like segment 1 a lot. It’s fun, fast and it’s over quick. Really liked it even more this time.
• Segment 2, on the other hand, is a pretty good example of the more-clever-than-funny segment. Clearly they wanted to say something about the many many avant garde stagings of “Hamlet,” and they did say something, but I’m not sure it added up to a comedy sketch.
• Yes, that’s an uncredited Ricardo Montalban doing the voice of Claudius and John Banner, of “Crash of the Moons” and “Hogan’s Heroes,” doing the voice of Polonius. Happily, the Brains noticed. They made two John Banner jokes and one Montalban reference.
• Segment 3, feeling very season two-ish, goes on a little long. But it’s a cute idea.
• Kevin is hilarious as Fortinbras in the end bit.
• Cast and crew roundup: Nobody involved in making this movie worked on any other MSTed movie.
• CreditsWatch: Directed by Mike.
• Fave riff: “Hamlet faxed me a sililoquy!” Honorable mention: “Nice play, Shakespeare.”
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To SLEEEEEP!
I’m in the pro-Hamlet camp and give it ***1/2.
As boring and dreary as this movie is, I would still gladly sit through it unriffed and unedited in its native language if given the choice between it and an unriffed showing of Marooned/Space Travellers.
#43 & #46: Hey, I like Mad Monster! Seriously, I remember the first time I really sat and watched it and was surprised at how much I enjoyed it.
But on topic: This isn’t a favorite, but I kind of enjoy it. I find it odd that in an English dub, they picked someone with a thick Mexican accent to do the dubbing. Uh… ok, then, guys.
“Ay, there’s the rub…”
“I knew I had some rub left!”
Roman,
As others have noted, it’s not really a matter of hate, just that it’s a very very very very (hmmm, have I said enough “very”s yet?) boring movie with so-so riffing. I don’t mind Hamlet (have even performed it) but in truth it’s no where near the Bard’s best (can you say “overrated”?) and this production isn’t inept (now THAT would be funny) just so dreary and by the numbers. It’s hard to riff things which aren’t poorly made but just dull — the dullness doesn’t lend itself to any real humor (how many times can you comment on how dull something is?).
My attention wanders during this and I have *never* had that through MST3K episodes where I hated the movie (there are some real despicable movies done by MST3K). I either find myself doing other things or falling asleep and that’s not a hallmark of something worth watching. So — sorry, but “worst. episode. ever.” (Not because I hate it, but because it misses the whole point of MST3K, which is Fun. Get it?)
But I’m not upset that others enjoy it. I think, however, that even the most ardent fans of this one would admit they are glad this was not the sort of episode MST3K did often (or even “ever again”).
Count me in as well among those who consider this episode not so bad. Not their best, but pretty entertaining in its own right. And it’s Hamlet. Truncated German Hamlet, but Hamlet all the same.
I love Kevin Murphy’s comment in his episode guide entry: “This thing, made in the early ’60s, has ‘we’re still really sorry for the war and feel terrible’ all over it.”
I also love the riff comparing Claudius to an overfed Richard Thompson. And, of course, the cracks about Danish clowns…
First of all, the movie is not terrible… Its not great, but like Kevin mentions, its Shakespeare. I certainly don’t think Shakespeare is untouchable, but I’ve seen some God awful versions of Hamlet and this isn’t one of them. That being said, I find myself watching it and the sparse, mediocre riffing just doesn’t bring anything to the experience.
As previously stated, I think this was an “experiment” (like the Rifftrax Casablanca which I also disliked) that, in my opinion, didn’t work. I fall in the camp of the worse the movie, the better the episode. Gimme Monster-A-Go-Go, Manos, Beast of Yucca Flats, and any other Coleman Francis movie you wanna throw at me. Bring on the “DEEP HURTING”, because the episodes that feature “watchable movies” are my least favorite episodes. Well… there’s only 2 episodes that feature “watchable movies”. I don’t like “Kitten With a Whip” either, because its not a terrible movie, and I find myself watching it and the riffs become distracting. The only difference is the riffs in “Kitten With a Whip” are MUCH better than the riffs in Hamlet.
I usually try to give Hamlet another try once a year, and my opinion has yet to change. I DO love the host segments, but that’s not enough to save this from being my least visited episode.
“Camera Two! Cut to Camera Two!”
MxgK @54 – last paragragh.
I disagree. A bad production of “A Streetcar Named Desire” would have made excellent MST fodder.
@38: “Perhaps if they’d found one which was performed badly, that would’ve made it a funnier episode . . .” Are you kidding me? This IS performed badly. Every performance is flat and un-energetic. I think that the Brains would have struggled to find a Shakespeare film from the post-silent film era that would be more poorly performed.
Kudos to the Brains for trying something new after ten seasons. I’m also in the camp that this isn’t the worst episode ever. (I sometimes use my “Night of the Blood Beast” DVD as a coaster.) But it is below average. The riffs are too few to really make this episode drag. The dreary cinematography and depressing scenery don’t help.
Like many others, I’ve warmed up to this episode, but not a whole lot. There is a nostalgic quality of “Hamlet,” having read it about six times (“Macbeth” is the only Shakespeare play I’ve read more.) The familiar language of this play wraps me up like a security blanket… as odd as that sounds. The fact that the voiceovers (especially Montalban’s) are better than the German actors’ performance helps this episode.
The MSTies do protest too much, methinks.
First, to those who hate this one, I can’t blame you. But I love it for reasons beyond what is included in the show itself. It is a noble, though failed, experiment in movie riffing.
As a high school A.P. English geek, I personally identified with the character of Hamlet, being an ‘alienated youth’ myself. Saw it performed onstage in NYC by Kevin Kline at Joe Papp’s Public Theater when I was in college, still entranced by the character’s brooding melancholy. It wasn’t until I was much older and wiser (?) that I saw this German nightmare version of my hero portrayed as an epic tool in a MST episode. As a burgeoning MSTie, their willingness to mock a (debased version of an) English-Lit standard captured my fancy, helping me to become a convert.
So this is why I’m fond of this particular episode, ever though it may not be that funny. The fact that the Brains took hold of this opportunity to skewer a beloved classic demonstrates the breadth of their comedic worldview and automatically elevates it beyond the usual complaints about the inherent poor qualities of a MST film.
This is a complex equation: usually a a MST film has both a bad script & poor production values. Here the script is GOLD but the staged for Kraut-TV production seems sub-par. The Brains aren’t mocking the play, but the execution. Yes it’s dull, but Hamlet is inherently boring. It’s not a visual story! Perhaps in it’s original 2.5 hour (IMDb says “152 min.”) runtime, this version is fine, but from what they chose to show us here, it is dullsville. Imagine having to endure another hour of this…
He may be one of “the most successful non-anglophone foreign actors in the history of American cinema,” (again, IMDb) but Maximilian Schell I mainly remember from Disney’s disastrous The Black Hole (soon to be remade). The decision to have him dub his own voice in English is unfortunate, as he is sometimes difficult to understand. Ricardo Montalban (Mr. Roarke/Khan) as the voice of Claudius only adds to the geek fantasy/deconstruction going on here. “Rich Corinthian leather.” And Ophelia was HOT. Pity the real girl killed herself too.
Still, an attempt at an “objective” rating must be made… For sheer balls (and to skew the ratings towards the positive) I’d like to give it a 5, but honestly, it’s more of a 2. Maybe a 1. Drab and dreary, with some chuckles but few real laughs.
Whether the Brains dropped the ball here in the writing room or if it was unriffable from the get-go and should never have been attempted (or aired) are questions that don’t concern me. It’s bit like “Revolution 9” from The Beatles White Album: I appreciate the attempt, but having heard it a few times, I usually skip it. Still a great album, and putting the “experimental track” near the end doesn’t detract too much from the whole.
Crow: “Get thee to a bakery – no, wait…”
I agree with Creepygirl. I had the same experience.
“Hamlet” is better than “Santa Claus”, “Zombie Nightmare” and “Racket Girls” by far. For these three the riffing was flat and proves no matter how bizzare the movie is, it needs strong riffing to go along with it.
Not a favorite, but not a bad episode either, I think it’s just that the production is so monochromatic and spoken so monotonously that it’s hard to focus on what’s going on, if the story were unfamiliar it probably would be as inscrutable as City Limits or Castle of Fu Manchu. I’d love to see them riff the David Tennant/Patrick Stewart Hamlet, which is a much better production but also kind of monochromatic and claustrophobic.
“Time for starchy, pork-filled German Hamlet.”
Put me in the camp of not my favorite episode (even Mike Nelson, has referred to it as “their most hated episode”). As others have mentioned, it’s no so much bad, just dull. I remember seeing on rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc someone did a MiSTing of “The Merchant of Venice” on the premise that M&tB were so used to riffing, they’d riff anything. Hamlet seems to be a canon version of that same premise. (And continued with Rifftrax, such as Lord of The Rings riffs.) In my mind, the key to a good MST3k episode is have some sort of failure (plot, acting, effects, etc.) and have the riffs exploit it. This version of Hamlet gives the riffers very little to work with.
When I saw Hamlet announced, I was hoping for some spectacular failure, such as the dialog being translated into German and then back into English (leading to weird dialog ala Gamera vs. Guiron). Instead, the dubbers actually bothered to use the original (even if the performances were pretty flat). The riffs are hit or miss, and other than the Htom Servieux bit (“purse your beak” is still a favorite phrase), I don’t care for the sketches. It is probably the least played of all my DVDs. I’ll even play “The Starfighters” before I’ll pull out Hamlet.
I never really saw this one until I got the boxset, and I went into it with the thought clear in my head that this episode gets SO MUCH HATE. So I popped it in with my normal expectations and found…
…That I reallllly enjoy this episode, far more than a person probably should. Perhaps it really worked best because I had just read the play in English class and it was therefore fresh on my mind. I also have no qualms with ripping apart classic pieces of literature, so for me, going into the sacred ground of Shakespeare was no problem.
Also, I knew the episode guide entries were getting shorter, but daaaang this takes the cake. >>;
Five Stars! because it needs the love.
#20 Rob: I just tweeted Kevin and asked him why he called “Alas Poor WHO?” “series canceling.” He replied “Because it was unremittingly and aggressively dumb.” Yowch!
I think this is one of my favorite eps. My theory is that a movie winds up on the show, it’s because something(or multiple things) are terrible, such as the script, the scenery, or the acting. Well, you can’t blame the script here, because it is one of the classics of all of literature. The acting is okay, but my big problem is the sets. It seems that there were only two sets: One was used for the throne room, the hallway, and most everthing else. The other one was used for the bedroom where Hamlet killed Polonious. It looked rather cheap to me. Also, everyone wore the same costumes throughout except for the Queen. It made the production look rather cheap. The host segments were good except for Number Three. I wondered why it got on because the premise was all wrong. Apparently you had to guess who someone was by just a few bones, supposedly beacuse Hamlet knew who Yoric was with just his skull; however, Horatio the gravedigger told Hamlet who it was, so that should have been thrown out. A couple of fave riffs:
When Hamlet mentions madness, Crow says, “I really hate that ‘Our House’ song, you know?
Mike’s Harry Carey impression: “Take me out to the sword fight!”
Tom as Claudius: “Tonight I’m going to unleash the great Dane.”
Also I liked when they started doing the ‘To Be or Not To Be’ soliloquy or lines from other plays at wrong times and the reactions to Hamlet’s elongated death scene.
#2 typed it best….the Great Dane riff is perfect!
3.5 stars
@61: “Hamlet” is better than “Santa Claus”, “Zombie Nightmare” and “Racket Girls” by far. For these three the riffing was flat
I couldn’t disagree more, especially about Santa Claus. Just off the top of my head, there’s singing “Does the devil lose his flavor on the bedpost overnight”, “Walter Brennan’s no good since he went camp”, “That IS a mouth, isn’t it?”, “That’s okay, us 3-year-old will just fend for ourselves”, and maybe my favorite riff ever, “But Santa oppresses the proletariat!”. (I may have paraphrased a couple of those.)
Of course, if you don’t know pre-rock-and-roll pop music, Walter Brennan or Karl Marx, you won’t get most of those.
@66 – Sampo
I just tweeted Kevin and asked him why he called “Alas Poor WHO?” “series canceling.” He replied “Because it was unremittingly and aggressively dumb.” Yowch!
Caught me off guard with that one and I laughed at loud (and I’m at work).
Correction: Horatio and the gravedigger(filthy, misogynous Paul Verhoven) were two different people.
The “Alas, poor who” sketch was bad, I thought. It seemed to me that they just played out the premise, and never built on it.
To watch or not to watch, that is the question. The riff’s the thing.
The fact that this was originally in German kind of scares me. I wonder how Shakespeare comes across translated into German. Guten tag, ich heisse Hamlet!
There’s not much left to say about this episode that the first 60+ of you haven’t already said. I neither hate nor love it. It just seems to sit there and beg me to watch it, because the concept is actually quite enticing. I like MST3K, I like Shakespeare. Surely putting the two together can’t be a bad idea, right?
Whether ’tis nobler to sit through this one without falling asleep or not, I don’t know. Alas poor MSTies, perhaps if Fortinbras had been included we would have enjoyed it more. What a piece of work was this episode.
TWO STARS.
One for having the guts to tackle the Bard. Another for the host segments.
I’m all for branching out from the “science” in MST, but this is a bridge too far. It’s still Hamlet, starchy actors and dreadfully voiced-over with the production values of a high school play notwithstanding. I don’t even care for Shakespeare, but with so many complicated thoughts flowing about, it leaves a paucity of opportunities for jocularity.
Randy
Well, I’m really impressed so far with the discussion for this ep. I was expecting a lot of vitriol, but most of the comments have been pretty reasonable and decent about explaining why they do or don’t like Hamlet. After a long week of listening to nasty rhetoric, this has been refreshing.
If you’re interested in seeing all of Shakespeare’s plays performed at once, check out the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, by the Reduced Shakespeare Company (dvd, available from Netflix). Their performance of Hamlet is worth a look, and won’t take up much of your time.
I’ve owned this ep for years, have not been able to make it all the way through yet. But in the interest of the ep guide, I will try again this weekend. The old english translated into german and back into english(or maybe it just seems that way) is enough to make my head spin, and I was always bored to death with shakespeare in school to begin with. Will attempt to get myself into the proper frame of mind and go for it saturday morning.
Incidentally, in that screen cap of the title and shadowrama, is that Servo’s control rod I see underneath him?
Sampo (#66): “I just tweeted Kevin and asked him why he called ‘Alas Poor WHO?’ ‘series canceling.’ He replied ‘Because it was unremittingly and aggressively dumb.’ Yowch!”
I can see that. The odd references seem ladled on with a trowel in that sketch, which is unusual for the Brains. Even when a sketch is filled with references, they usually made them feel organic to the characters (as in the cute bit in “Pumaman” where they all had the same off-kilter ideas about who would be worth controlling with the mask).
***
ck (#13): “Probably the strongest criticism of the production is that for some strange reason they cut out the small but crucial role of Fortinbras.”
It’s almost certainly the Brains who cut it. According to IMDb, the original movie is 152 minutes long. One cut I wonder about is when they cut from Polonius’s platitudinous advice to Laertes after the first line. I wonder, because it actually improves the pace, and helps sell the production’s joke (not in Shakespeare) that Polonius had only just memorized the advice from a book.
***
All in all, I find it a pretty average episode. It’s one of those where the level of the filmmaking itself is at a level of dull, basic competence that’s difficult to riff on, and the wordiness of the play forces M&TB into some unusually long stretches of silence. They’re reduced to twice making dog barks at exclamations of “Speak!” It’s rescued a bit for me because, well, it’s Hamlet, and riffing on something famous gives the Brains some new comic territory to explore.
A few favorite riffs not yet mentioned as I started writing this:
(sung to courtly dance music) “Night fever, night fever. We know how to do it.”
“We’ll be on the throne.”
“Nuns sent me home. My skirt’s too short.”
A riff I’m almost surprised they didn’t do: Earlier in the series, they’d frequently quip, “Polonius?” when someone was hiding behind something, listening. They missed the opportunity to revive it. “Polonius? Oh, wait, this time it really is.”
#78 – A few favorite riffs not yet mentioned as I started writing this:
(sung to courtly dance music) “Night fever, night fever. We know how to do it.”
I beat you to it early on :) It always cracks me up as does the actual song whenever I catch it on the radio.
German Hamlet. What an idea.
It’s been years since I last watching this one. I don’t dislike it as much as others here do (I tend to be attracted to the more empty episodes: Starfighters, Coleman Francis trilogy), but it just never seems to come up much in my DVD player. Still, while I don’t care for it too much this viewing I found it better than I thought. But it still will not become one of my favorites. (And like Sampo, I found myself sometimes distracted by the fact that I’m actually paying attention to Shakespeare’s dialog.
I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the initial rumors that flew around the Internet (or rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc at least) shortly after this episode title was announced. There was talk that this was a “special” edition of Hamlet, where Shakespeare’s dialog had been translated into German (for the original production) and then translated directly and literally into English (i.e. not using the original Shakespeare). This turned out to be incorrect, obviously, but it was a fun thought.
This is one of the few instances where my thoughts keep drifting out of the MST3king. IMDB at one time stated that the actress playing Ophelia committed suicide on her birthday at the age of 23. Always makes me sad to think of that. Especially as I can’t help but notice how much she looks like someone I met a few times.
Anyone ever completely misremembered a riff? Or had a riff added by your memory that never actually happened? I have a soundbite in my head of Tom saying (right after Polonius has been stabbed through the curtain) in a overly happy voice : “Polonious! You nut!”
When Hamlet is confronting Uncle King at the end, Crow riffs “Okay, okay, mistakes were made” (Nixon/Reagan reference)… but his mouth continues moving long after the riff was finished. I know this happens every so often, but this seemed like one of the longer edits. Any guesses on what was cut?
It’s silly, but I always laugh when Tom and Crow are dressed as ghosts, and Tom sees Mike and immediately shrieks: “A ghost!!!” Is this a reference to something else? It seems familiar, but I just can’t place it.
(And of course, in the time it took me to type up my thoughts, people started mentioning the English –> German –> English thing.)
Also, I’m surprised there weren’t more Ricardo Montalban jokes. I’m surprised no one yelled “KHAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!” at him…
Most of the people professing admiration for this one love Ol’ Shakes. I may be the only one who HATES Shakespeare and LOVES this episode, though it may be because I so dearly love to hear M&TB rip into these pompous windbags (I’ve read a lot of it, I understand it, and I still hate it). Hating Shakes in my circles is akin to saying you hate Da Vinci, Einstein and Mozart, but I can’t help it.
I think the seriousness of the actors contributes greatly to the riffing, which I find to be top-notch. Also, I can’t help but collapse in a fit of giggles anytime anyone, for any reason, yells “SUM UP!!!”
:mrgreen: 9 out of 10 :mrgreen:
Favorite riffs that haven’t been mentioned yet:
“Ah! The Great ‘What Time Is It?’ scene from HAMLET”
“I’ll take ‘to be’ for fifty, Alex”
OPHELIA: “My prince…”
HTOM: “…are back from Photo-Mat”
“Shakespeare BLUE!”
“So, there’s no chance there’s gonna be a jet ski chase in this movie, huh Mike?”
“TO BE, OR….oh…..”
Now I’ve seen 2 episodes, “Demon Doll” and “Hamlet” and they both were boring. What a waste. You people need to preoccupy your time with something else. Morons.
Actually, that’s “Devil Doll”, unless you saw a little known lost episode.
And the winner is:
Okay, I felt like I really watched this one carefully though not too analytically I hope.
It was fun.
Hadn’t watched this since a first viewing years ago when I thought it was a total failure. Didn’t think that this time so have to reevaluate my grade. There were enough big laughs to edge this away from my bottom episodes: the bottom three would now have to fall to She Creature, Quest of the Delta K. and Magic Voyage of Sinbad. Hamlet is far from the disaster I remember it being, though there are enough dead spots for me to rank this lower than most. Which brings me to:
The Film itself.
This is a truly wretched production of what may be the greatest play in the English language. Over acted, bleak as noted, and containing some of the worst direction I’ve ever seen–my High School production of Midsummer’s Nights Dream was ten times better than this dismal outing. But to paraphrase Billy the Bard: the plot is not the thing, the poetry is…that is, what I think is truly great about Shakespeare is the words, not the rather clunky plot lines (bringing in a Ghost to advance your plot is always a weakness–trying reading Morrison’s “Beloved” for example without rolling your eyes.) And half of the great words are entirely muddled…so we are left with a static (almost nothing in the background to riff on at all) and nearly incomprehensible, plodding tele-soap-opera. This makes it hard on the Brains riffing-wise with lots of long passage where they can’t really riff at all. Still, they do a pretty good job, though I think they could have done better. Which brings me to:
The really go easy on Max. He is one of the worst actors to ever win an oscar for best actor. Really, we’re talking William Shatner territory here. Go back and watch his wretched performance in Judgment in Nurmberg (a film Shatner was in btw!) and you will see…I think they could made a lot more fun his delivery, his pacing etc to fill in the dead spaces, since its really nearly impossible to understand what he’s saying most of the time.
Highlights: the to be or not to be speech which they have a good time with until Max takes off and they don’t get a riff in. The Brains should have outshouted him.
The Ophelia madness bit. Great.
The riffs on Claudius’ face as he watches the duel…he looks like so stoned….anything with Claudius is pretty funny.
Hamlet’s Carnival of the Soulseque initial wordless confrontation with Ophelia. Hilarious on its own.
And:
Anything with Patty Labelle, ur, I mean the King’s Ghost appears. As has been mentioned, the Rosalind Russel riff is a fav though the follow up, the next riff after that, is my absolute favorite. Can’t remember it as usual, but go enjoy for yourself…
We all noticed Ricardo Montablan but did the Brains? Did I miss some Star Trek riffs or something? I didn’t catch any.
Host segs were disappointing.
Nuff said.
C
“I’m surprised that no one has mentioned the initial rumors that flew around the Internet (or rec.arts.tv.mst3k.misc at least) shortly after this episode title was announced. There was talk that this was a “special” edition of Hamlet, where Shakespeare’s dialog had been translated into German (for the original production) and then translated directly and literally into English (i.e. not using the original Shakespeare). This turned out to be incorrect, obviously, but it was a fun thought.”
I’d forgotten all about that!! Obviously, there was some sort of a mis-communication between BBI and the fans on that. I forget exactly where that idea came from but I fear I was somehow involved!
I’m not a fan of this episode simply because I find the riffing to be sub-par. The dull, dreary production certainly doesn’t help anything either. Put that together and you’ve got a pretty weak episode in my opinion. I do love most of the host segments though.
Has any one seen “Hamlet 2”? Has nothing do with this episode but I thought I ask.
It’s… not a terrible episode, in my opinion, though the choice of movie is indeed a tad bizarre. I can only assume they knew time was running out, one of them (Kevin?) had always wanted to riff on bad Shakespeare, so they did this.
Can’t help wondering how many junior high or high school English teachers use this episode as an attempt to get kids to pay attention to The Bard….
#88- I have- though I don’t remember it too well- my GF/roommate watched it and I joined in for a bit.
Oh, don’t know, Sampo…are you sure you’re not half right?
I mean, some of those lines did not sound right…especially the “what time is it” scene. Almost got out my complete works of Shakespeare last night because it did occur to me that some lines didn’t sound “right.” Anyone have time to check?
Flying Saucer: so few adaptations of Shakespeare work and many a high schooler has been traumatized through out the years…except by Zefferelli’s Romeo and Juliet of course….or by Olivia Hussey to be exact.
“Thank you, cold-water-on-groin.”
Put me in with those who love this ep (as you can tell by my nickname–btw they never fixed that and technically that’s still his real name), both as a MST, and for Maximillian Schell. I think he’s one of the best Hamlets out there, because he plays it more understated and soft than most others. Certainly kicks the crap out of Mel Gibson, and I disagree with Mike being that I’d rather see this than the Zefferelli.
After reading on this site (in different topics) how someone can see the brilliance of Manos, all the love for “Kline” (Vomits), and now…how this episode isn’t getting slammed to Hell, but is either good or (Vomits again) very good makes me ashamed to be a MST3K fan.
This episode is easily a Top 3 for worst MST3K of all time. I’ve only watched it all the way once, and the other times I fall asleep (or I should say, my brain turns itself off to prevent any damage from viewing the train wreck on screen). Is it “Cool” to like this episode now? Are MST3K fans not allowed to dislike ANY episodes?!
I’m very lucky that I have yet to run into a MST3K fan who behaves in the manner that is portrayed in some of the messages here. If I was to see that in real life…I’d probably destroy all of my DVD’s and never think of MST3K ever again!
If I could give this 1/2 of a star, I would have.
SuperSwift #83 – Wow, two Mstie haters in the past week. How are you cooler-than-morons people finding your way here?
MLD #94 – Chill. I hate watermelon, but I don’t freak out when others in my family are making sticky pink messes of themselves.
I’m GizmonicTemp, and I approve this dictum.
One reference they missed…
The actor playing Horatio was Karl Michael Vogler, who played Rommel in Patton. After all of the “you magnificent bastard, I read your book!” riffs (and variations thereof) they did over the years, I was surprised they didn’t pick up on that.
A question about editing the films, if anyone has the answer:
I’ve heard about films from the first few seasons where the Brains riffed on an entire overlength film in the writing room, and then edited the film before the taping of the episode.
Did this remain the case during the whole run of the show? It seems like kind of a wasted effort to riff on parts of the movie that they’d just have to edit out to fit the timeslot. Granted, it would give them the freedom of cutting the scenes with the least funny riffs, but to some degree, they’d have to edit the movie so that it still made sense. (And since the first scenes you’d trim for time would be the dullest/least vital, they’re apt to be the ones yielding the least/worst riffs anyway.)
I wonder if they may have changed it later on to having someone (Brad?) edit the movie to 75 minutes before the writing began. If that were the case, only one writer would have seen the whole movie– the one who picked it (Frank or Mary Jo). Which would explain the occasional joke accidentally ripping the film for an edit that was made at BBI.
That’s my hypothesis, anyway.
MLD (#94); “how this episode isn’t getting slammed to Hell, but is either good or (Vomits again) very good makes me ashamed to be a MST3K fan.”
The subjectivity of taste is a terrible, terrible bitch, ain’t it?
“I’m very lucky that I have yet to run into a MST3K fan who behaves in the manner that is portrayed in some of the messages here. If I was to see that in real life…I’d probably destroy all of my DVD’s and never think of MST3K ever again!”
And God, how much we would regret that.
“If I could give this 1/2 of a star, I would have.”
Yeah, yeah. And if you could give it 1/2 star, you’d say, “If I could give this zero stars, I would have.” And if you could give it zero stars, you’d say, “If I could give this negative stars, I would have.” It’s people like you that make comments on IMDb so unreadable. Let me guess: you’ve posted more than one review blasting a movie as “THE WORST MOVIE EVER!!!”
It’s black & white. It’s Europey. It’s slow. Hardly any music. I can see people’s gripes.
MST3k saves it for me, though.
For me, it’s a good-not-great episode. What helps it (and this is true with the truly dreadful movies) is that it’s not only unremittingly bleak, but it takes itself so seriously. I mean, I know it’s a tragedy, but even the comic relief is serious.
Favorite riff: That’s Sickly Days, downtown Copenhagen.