SHAKESPEARE

Synopsis

Experimental short film. The wooing scene from The Taming of the Shrew in which the actors spoke the complete text, a primitive sound process known as Voxograph. Ball (op cit) writes ‘When it was presented in the theatre, the same actors, one at each side of the screen but unseen, repeated the words in what was supposed to be synchronisation. It was expected that the operator, after rehearsal, would be able to project the film so that picture and voice would jibe’.

Country

Great Britain

Medium

Film

Technical information

Black-and-white / Silent

Year of release

1915

Availability

Presumed a lost film.

Credits

Cast

Constance Backner	Katherina
Arthur Backner	Petruchio

Additional Details

Production type

Fiction Films

Plays

Taming of the Shrew, The

Subjects

Drama

Keywords

Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)

Notes

Reviews

Ball, Robert Hamilton. Shakespeare on Silent Film: A Strange Eventful History. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1968 (p. 220-1, 359).
Bertram Clayton, ‘Shakespeare and the Talkies’, English Review (1929), p. 740). Clayton writes ‘the poor mimes struggled bravely from their respective corners to create the illusion that the silent drama had become articulate...But frequently of course, the Petruchio of the film would dash over to the side where only Katherine’s voice was heard, and vice versa. At such moments it would have been charity if the orchestra has struck up and drowned all four of them’.

Production Company

Name

British and Colonial Kinematograph