"Hamlet" is a German/Danish co-production from 1921, so this one has its 95th anniversary this year and not too long anymore until the century is completed. Like many other of these old silent black-and-white films, the intertitles are in German language, at least in the version I saw. The lead actress, however, is Danish: Asta Nielsen, one of the biggest stars back in the day, around the age of 40, plays the title character. This may be strange for some to watch a female play Hamlet, but this is not the reason why I did not like the film particularly. The reason is that I simply did not find the story (or the adaptation) too convincing or edge-of-seat material at all. The version I watched is the restored DVD version and even that one stays only 9 minutes under the two-hour mark. The original ran for 10 minutes over 2 hours I see. The film just dragged on so so many occasions and intertitles were far from frequent enough to let me recommend this movie here. Still, it is probably today, almost a century later, the most known work by the four people who wrote and directed this film. But I guess it is only somewhat known today because it is about a character created by the famous William Shakespeare. There is pretty much nothing memorable about this film we have here and I do not recommend the watch. Thumbs down.
Review of Hamlet
