THE TEMPEST (1908)
Article 5337 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 1-5-2017
Directed by Percy Stow
Cast unknown
Country: UK
What it is: Silent Shakespeare adaptation

The survivors of a ship sunk by a tempest find themselves stranded on an island inhabited by a sorcerer, his daughter, and two mystical creatures.

I’m surprised I don’t have more of a working familiarity with the play that inspired this one; it is, after all, with the possible exception of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM, the play of Shakespeare’s that has the greatest amount of fantastic content. However, every time I try to read it, I get lost in the language and lose the thread of the story. As a result, I actually got something out of this version; bereft of the language and shortened to twelve minutes, I came out of it with at least an outline of the story to help me when I tackle reading it again in the future. On its own terms, it’s not bad for what it is – an abbreviated “high points” summary of a familiar story, and it’s entertaining enough for its length. And of course, I couldn’t resist trying to match up the various characters with their equivalents in the science fiction classic modeled off the story, FORBIDDEN PLANET. All in all, I found this viewing quite useful.