1. --> Screencaps
2. --> Photos from uppa.co.uk
3. --> April 18 - 24, 1964, BBC Radio Times, Hamlet at Elsinore
4. --> July 31, 1967, TV Weekly - New Zealand, Hamlet at Elsinore
5. --> January 23 - 29, 1965, BBC Radio Times, Hamlet at Elsinore
6. --> October 14, 1963 Newsweek Hamlet at Elsinore
7. --> March 21, 1964, Maclean's, The Taping of Hamlet Starring Christopher Plummer and Elsinore
8. --> April 24, 1964, Life Magazine
9. --> Variety reviews - Nov. 18, 1964; April 29, 1964; Nov. 27, 1963
10. --> April 16, 1964, Toronto Star, Good Shakespeare and TV
11. --> April 16, 1964, Globe and Mail, Plummer Magnificent in Televised Hamlet
12. --> [Interview comments about Hamlet]
13. --> Photo from 1966 TV Magazine
14. Hamlet: Film, Television, and Audio Performance (1988)
     Chapter 8 - Hamlet at Elsinore with Christopher Plummer (1964)
15. New York Times
      --> November 15, 1964, New York Times, The Bard's Play Is the Thing
      --> May 4, 1964, New York Times, TV: A 'Hamlet' Recorded at Elsinore
      --> October 13, 1963, New York Times, 'Hamlet' Revisited
      December 4, 1966, New York Times, [photo of Plummer and Caine from Hamlet]
      August 15, 1965, New York Times, Television This Week
      September 2, 1964, New York Times, Hamlet Set for TV Here
      August 3, 1963, New York Times, B.B.C. Picks 'Unknown' to Play Ophelia in TV Film
16. Washington Post
      May 2, 1966, Washington Post, Laurent Suggests
      November 16, 1964, Washington Post, Hamlet at Elsinore Proves Credit to TV
      November 14, 1964, Washington Post, Notes for a Sunday Hamlet
      September 13, 1963, Washington Post, Hamlet to Walk at Elsinore Again
17. Los Angeles Times
      Jan. 7, 1965, Los Angeles Times, They Come to Praise 'Hamlet'
      Jan. 5, 1965, Los Angeles Times, Plummer's 'Hamlet' A Video Landmark
      Jan. 3, 1965, Los Angeles Times, Plummer photo
      Dec. 31, 1964, Los Angeles Times, display ad
      Dec. 31, 1964, Los Angeles Times, A Look Forward to 'Hamlet' Sunday

Christopher Plummer received a Best Actor Emmy nomination for this role. As of 2005, this 1964 BBC movie has never been released on commercial video and has not aired on TV in recent years. It can be seen at the Museum of Television and Radio, which does not sell videos. MTR archives list a 180 minute running time for the movie. Plummer has discussed the movie in many interviews, including EW Nov. 15, 2005, in which he expressed disappointment that the movie has not been made available.

Here are some videoclips (approx. 9 minutes). (These are also on the video page.) The clips and screencaps on this site are from just a few short clips that have appeared in TV biodocumentaries and TV interviews. These are not all the highlights, just footage from the few clips that are available.

The TV movie was broadcast in many countries. Some broadcast dates based on news articles:
Canada: April 15, 1964
BBC: April 19, 1964; Jan. 24, 1965
USA: Nov. 15, 1964; Aug 15, 1965; May 2, 1966
California Jan. 3, 1965

Photos from uppa.co.uk

From a 1980 RSC Program

From the book Stage fight: swords, firearms, fisticuffs, and slapstick by William Hobbs

March 21, 1964 Maclean's The Taping of Hamlet Starring Christopher Plummer and Elsinore

Oct. 14, 1963 Newsweek Hamlet at Elsinore

April 24, 1964, Life Magazine

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April 18 - 24, 1964, BBC Radio Times, Hamlet at Elsinore

July 31, 1967, TV Weekly - New Zealand Hamlet at Elsinore

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January 23 - 29, 1965, BBC Radio Times
Hamlet at Elsinore

The listing page is for Sunday Jan. 24, 1965.

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	Nov. 15, 1964, NY Times Ad

May 4, 1964

The New York office of the B.B.C., hopeful of making arrangements for an American showing, has been screening the presentation at a series of showings for critics and other invited guests at the Johnny Victory Theater on West 49th Street. The production runs uninterruptedly for 2 hours and 50 minutes, a span of time that invites a more lenient appreciation of domestic TV's occasional pause for commercials.

The cost of evening network time in the United States for a sponsored three hour presentation, incidentally, would exceed $300,000. To this would be added in the case of "Hamlet," the price of the rights from the B.B.C.

In keeping with the corporate venturesomeness of the B.B.C., the British company traveled to Elsinore at the suggestion of the Danish Television Service, which proposed the "Hamlet" at Shakespeare's chosen setting. The lonely and angry seacoast and the mammoth hills, courtyards and chambers of the castle, all were at the disposal of Philip Saville, the director, in an assignment certain to whet the envy of TV craftsmen everywhere.

During the opening minutes it appeared that Mr. Saville was committed to disaster. His ghost scene was Cinerama gone amuck, roaring waves, winds whistling over the sand dunes, reverberating echo chambers and a screaming and hair-pulling Hamlet. The corn can grow high in Denmark.

The awkward introduction, as a matter of fact, might account in part for the enlightening footnote reported in the current issue of Variety. "The Beverly Hillbillies" outdrew "Hamlet" in the London ratings.

Mercifully, Mr. Saville quickly made a more modest adjustment to his environment, though some puzzling distractions were to recur. The counseling of Laertes by Polonius was magnificently staged on the beach; the hectic arrival of the players in the courtyard was a joyful lark; the funeral procession for Ophelia was singularly impressive; the duel scene vibrated with spacious action.

By contrast, the temptation to succumb to camera movement as an end in itself noticeably marred Mr. Plummer's "To be or not to be" soliloquy. Doing the scene on several levels, with a different technical quality of sound reproduction accompanying each visual change, was disruptive of a viewer's full savoring of the words.

For some totally unexplained reason, Mr. Saville also elected to do the play scene in pantomime; the rash editorial indulgence assumed unintended hilarity when Gertrude later observed that the mute Player Queen had protested too much.

The unevenness of the staging, which did not extend to Mr. Saville's admirably sustained cultivation of the intended humor in "Hamlet," was nonetheless not without its own interest. Even in moments of failure, the effort to apply a sense of documentary realism to "Hamlet," was fresh and inventive TV theater, an act of creative boldness that American video could well emulate.

The production's high pleasure was Mr. Plummer's personable Hamlet with its supple wit and style that so enhanced the credibility of the man's contrasting inner torment and tragedy. There were lapses now and again into disquieting kittenishness but over-all the clarity and straightforwardness of Mr. Plummer's portrayal enriched the sensitivity of his reading of the soliloquies, particularly when the camera ceased its nervous ways and rested on Mr. Plummer's mind at work.

The Claudius of Robert Shaw was totally compelling in its intellectual vitality and the young Gertrude of June Tobin exuded sensuality. In their scene in bed, however, Mr. Saville let the eye get the best of the ear. For the viewer the fate of the Queen's bra made the King's lament over imminent troubles seem spectacularly inadequate.

Michael Caine's Horatio was sturdy and winning. The Polonius of Alec Clunes was strong on competency and weak on comedy. The Ophelia of Jo Maxwell Muller lacked a lyric overtone to her madness. The Laertes of Dyson Lovell was a wretchedly bland lad.

New York television viewers are scheduled to see the "Hamlet" to be staged this summer in Central Park, but, so far as the record now shows, the national networks remain indifferent to the occasion of Shakespeare's anniversary. An American showing of Mr. Plummer's Hamlet, already seen on Canadian television, would admirably fill the void.

October 13, 1963

It is the perfect Renaissance of North Europe; a massive, brass-roofed thing that seems to hug to itself the secrets of many ancient treacheries. Inside, its walls have the damp smell of history, and portraits of old kings stare at you knowingly, their faces wine-flushed above the white ruffs.

The feeling Kronborg gives you as you cross its three moats and penetrate its dark heart is one of impending doom, of plots being plotted, of daggers about to be drawn, and it comes as no surprise whatsoever to turn a corner and find Hamlet brooding on the ways and means of murdering his uncle Claudius.

For 10 days Elsinore's famous castle has come alive again to the sound of clashing swords, marching soldiers and voices crying for revenge. "Hamlet" was being filmed for television in the place where Shakespeare said it all happened.

Adventurous Idea

Rather surprisingly, the adventurous idea for this, the biggest production yet undertaken by a European TV company, came from the British Broadcasting Corporation, an organization not often commended for displaying a spirit of adventure. The B.B.C. put up an unheard sum of £25,000 ($70,000), brought the Canadian actor Christopher Plummer from Broadway to play Hamlet, and talked the Danish royal family into lending the castle.

The rest of the £40,000 budget was put up by Danish Television, which supplied the technical crew and the equipment - almost all the equipment they possess, since Danish Television is a mere 24-hour-a-week affair, and the British director, Philip Saville was using 10 cameras simultaneously.

The film was made at an astonishing speed, with the unit working 16 hours a day and keeping itself going on a diet of hot dogs and Danish lager beer. They rehearsed for six days, then recorded the film in four days. It had to be done this way because Mr. Plummer had only 10 days free between engagements in New York.

As a result, the B.B.C. had set up some kind of speed record for a major production of "Hamlet." The film runs two and a quarter hours, 15 minutes longer than the Olivier film. The telecast will be shown next spring, as part of the tercentenary Shakespeare celebrations.

'Epic' Problems

Judged by normal B.B.C. standards, the size and budget of this production puts it in the "Cleopatra" class. It is its first "epic" and it soon found that the epics always have Darryl Zanuck-sized problems attached to them. One was that the castle had no electricity. The B.B.C. installed it at a cost of £2,500. Another was that a barque hired for use as the ship that takes Hamlet to England disappeared mysteriously the night after it arrived. It seems that two enterprising young Danes removed the barque under cover of fog and sailed it across the sound to Sweden.

The B.B.C. people are immensely proud of their venture. With this "Hamlet" they are trying to set the pattern for British television drama of the next decade - lavish, painstaking, highly professional.

But they are also a shade fearful. Sydney Newman, the B.B.C.'s new head of drama, said:

"We're really sticking our necks out with this one. We have a unique idea, but it can only become a successful precedent if we manage to sell the film to as many countries as possible. We have enquiries from Canada, Germany and Italy, but obviously what we would most like is to sell it to an American network.

"What an achievement that would be! Of course the running time is against us. I doubt if American viewers would sit down to two and a quarter hours of "Hamlet" without a break."

Mr. Plummer disagreed. He thought the American audiences would accept the unusual idea of this "Hamlet" and would be intrigued because it was "filmed on the spot." It is his reputation in America that might help the sale to be made.

Profile In Courage

This tousled young man with a fine profile and a fierce temper is unknown in Britain, but he rapidly won the respect of the British cast, which includes Alec Clunes as Polonius and Robert Shaw as Claudius. Mr. Clunes respect is worth having, too, because he has now played every male role in "Hamlet" and is one of the theater's major authorities on the play.

The strain on Mr. Plummer has been tremendous. Philip Saville, the director, had him work continuously for 12 hours on the "To be or not to be" soliloquy, which is filmed in two dozen separate scenes as Hamlet roams the castle in torment.

Mr. Plummer said: "The pace is utterly killing. But the virtue of this kind of 'crash' production is that it keeps an actor in a state of sustained excitement."

The excitement also came from being able to work in "Hamlet's" own castle. The actors reveled in the place. To them it is a vast theater. "Where could you get studio sets like this?" said Mr. Plummer, waving at the high black pews and painted cherubs of the Royal Chapel, a miracle of 16th century building.

Technical Demands

The Danish crew, on the other hand, remained unimpressed. They were too busy coping with technical demands far beyond those of their infant television service. A remarkable group, these Danes. They dropped microphones and tripped up the stairs with their hundreds of electric cables and yet they managed, by a mixture of eagerness and instinct, to produce the right results. They also made a fairly astonishing leap over the language barrier, and in a matter of hours could comprehend weird items like a "creeping dolly," even though they had never seen one before.

But one has the feeling that, when the film is shown, it will be the old castle that triumphs. It is the eerie, forbidding Kronborg that makes this "Hamlet" so exactly right. Even the ancient brass cannons on the battlements get into the set by sounding the "peal of ordnance" ordered by Fortinbras in the last scene. They hadn't been fired for 200 years, and they bounced with the joy of it all and sent the seagulls whirling away toward Sweden.

Nov. 18, 1964

April 29, 1964

Nov. 27, 1963

April 16, 1964 Toronto Star Good Shakespeare and TV

April 16, 1964 Globe and Mail Plummer Magnificent in Televised Hamlet

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From "Fifty Seasons at Stratford" by Robert Cushman.
The photos are from the 1957 stage production.

From May 18, 2002, The Toronto Star By Richard Ouzounian
Festival Snapshots [Excerpt:]

"I wasn't daunted when (artistic director) Michael Langham asked me to play Hamlet in 1957, because, you know, you're pretty arrogant when you're 26 and you've already had a success. Fear doesn't seem to enter into things. I barrelled ahead. I was much better later when I played it again, but I think you can't play Hamlet properly until you're probably 70 years old, because it needs a whole lifetime of wisdom and technique and maturity and a kind of calm thing that can bring out those words and make it totally believable that someone of 26 could never speak like that, for God's sake, in reality.

"Can you imagine at the pub, sitting around with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and they're all getting drunk, and Hamlet delivers that extraordinary speech, `What a piece of work is man?' They'd say, `He's out of his mind drunk, get him out of here, nobody speaks like that. Where did he learn to speak like that?'"

Mr. Plummer says now that he ''wouldn't mind doing Antony again.'' He would like a black Cleopatra (''Whoopi Goldberg wants to do it; she's always talking about it'') so that the Romans and Egyptians are two distinct societies onstage. He would also like to do Hamlet again (''They say I'm too old, which is ridiculous; Edwin Booth managed to do it with long gray flowing hair when he was as old as I am; the audience didn't seem to mind''); or Othello, which he has never done and for which he would be ideal (''but if I tried it in this country I'd be lynched'') or -- now he's talking -- Falstaff.

After bringing ''Othello'' to Broadway, Mr. Plummer would like to play Hamlet once more, and then to tackle King Lear. ''Those roles remain unchallenged because no one can come out and be the definitive anything in Shakespeare,'' he said.

Does he feel too old for Hamlet? ''The great actors of the 19th century weren't at all embarrassed to come on at age 60 and do Hamlet,'' he replied. ''Henry Irving had a steely dignity and an aura of wisdom and grandeur in the part. When you're older you can bring a certain wisdom and sensitivity to the part. Shakespeare has given a young actor an enormous creature to handle.''