Glad I'm not the only one. I thought Maximilian Schell portrayed Hamlet's detachment, gallows humor, and nihilism better than anyone else I've seen. And the brutalist concrete-slab set (that manages to look plausibly like stone), the black & white footage, and the lighting choices really set the mood nicely. I also really liked the decision to make certain of Hamlet's soliloquys be audible thoughts rather than spoken lines. It's a bit of a bummer to lose Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (other than that one lineless scene they have), but of course that's to be expected in a production this short. To me, the only weak point of this production is Ophelia. Her "descent into madness" was totally unbelievable. I guess part of that's actually a script problem, but while she played the pain Hamlet caused her pretty well, she didn't make the madness seem naturalistic at all (unlike Schell).
@@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc their Polonius is amazing. He’s such a grubby, condescending ass-kisser in this production. “What is it, Cold-Water-on-the-Groin? I mean, Polonius?”
We read this in my High School English Lit class. We all took turns reading the parts, etc... after the Queen's lines regarding Ophelia, I blurted out "So.... the creek." Everybody laughed... Well, I laughed.
@@AliasUndercover Yes. Horrible movies can get people into cool things. For example, I know people who saw the Queen movie and, despite how flat and made-for-TV it seemed, it got them into the great music of Queen.
I'd forgotten how good this episode is. In fact, it probably ranks as one of the top 10 or 12 in the show's history. "Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished..." (Snickering like an adolescent boy) "Especially with Ophelia, man."
You really have to admire the MST3K writers for having the guts to take this one on; I can only imagine that this was a very difficult source to riff but they rose to the challenge and it remains a unique episode. ...that, and Dachshund Day would be a pretty damned funny holiday.
Yeah, this is like the Lassie episode. That movie has so little dialogue to work with, but they pull it off. I wonder sometimes if they just wanted to challenge themselves.
"That's from 'Hamlet,' isn't it?!?'" IS THE BEST LINE IN MST3K HISTORY!!! BRAVO! 👏👏👏👏👏😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The complete lack of quality and competence, as well as being one of the dullest looking black and white movies ever, looking for all the world like it was shot inside an abandoned prison. Even Mel Gibson's Hamlet made up for some of its shortcomings by having some stellar cinematography, but there is nearly nothing good about this one.
@@TheBonkleFox When I'm really really really in the mood and well nourished Shakespeare is oHH'k with me. It also helps if it's done really right. I had a college professor who was awesome when he read out little bits here and there.
@@andrewfrankovic6821 see to me it's more that you have to do the lines with emotion, but if you put too much emotion into it it just starts sounding like purple prose and people tune out very easily.
'"Get thee to a nunnery!" "Actually, i may go to grad school." If I had a dollar for every time i had that exact same conversation when a relationship went wrong...
it's funny and all but you don't really have to be in english lit to understand the first one since that's literally what happened a few minutes (in movie time) ago.....well ok it feels like hours since this is the most boring version of hamlet concievable.
It was actually my introduction to the full tale , and a glorious one at that. The jokes are some of the best but I actually dug the minimalist design and Schell’s performance. Ophelia was on point.
Gotta love how mike is a trope namer for inadvertently destroying worlds constantly, but then here he probably just inadvertently saved the entire planet just through a rigged find the queen game.
@@mrcritical6751 Interesting. I assumed it would burn up on reentry. I know I'm already into the, "I should just relax" territory but I'm curious. How big is the sol, compared to, let's say, an apple, or a baseball bat ;) Hope you've seen the Rifftrax short, "Measuring Man", for that reference. TBS. How big is the SOL, compared to, let's say, The Challenger? I know they didn't leave the earth's atmosphere but I'm just curious about the size. The answer, "I'm Huge" , will not be accepted :)
@@Pocketrocket-pj1us It's whatever size works best for a given joke, of course. Sometimes it's implied that one "lobe" is the room the host segments are shown in and the other is the theater, and there's nothing else to the ship. At various other times it's got at least twelve decks, a squash court, and a feedlot where Crow raises his prize-winning pigs.
I like the fact that the riffers still have a lot of respect for and knowledge of the source material even if it's not well executed. For example, Mike's comment that "to be or not to be" is the literary equivalent of "DA-DA-DA-DUUUMMM!!!"
@@JamaicanCastle BTS info:. As this was the last broadcast season, the crew were given carte blanche to choose what they wished in terms of riffing, and this was something they chose for themselves just for fun.
Lots of good lines but when Hamlet is talking with his father's ghost..." murder, murder most foul"...Crow's response "They murdered a chicken"? And then Hamlet to Ophelia "I'm very proud, revengeful and ambitious" ...Tom Servo "Oh, he's republican" - just those two alone made it so worthwhile.
I actually like this version of "Hamlet". First, I love Maximilian Schell. His performance is hammy (so to speak) when it needs to be, like when he's pretending to be crazy, and it's subtle at other times, like when Laertes stabs him and he realizes it's a *real* sword, or when he's doing the "Alas, poor Yorick" speech.
Second, I like some of the choices this production makes with the play. It actually shows the part where Hamlet "comes before" Ophelia after seeing his father's ghost instead of just having Ophelia run to her father and tell him about it. Makes me wonder about the hour and a half of footage that never made it into the episode. I'd like to see how the whole production turned out.
I teach high school English, and I've taught this play...and my daughter is a theatre major in college (costume design, not acting)...we sat down last night and watched this...and laughed louder and harder at this than at anything in a LONG time. Having Ricardo Montelban's voice come out of a chubby German, and "Sgt. Schultz" aka John Banner's voice out of Polonius is sheer clumsy genius. And the riffing over the last fight scene is brilliant. The best parody is done by those who love what they are insulting--and they are at their peak here. (Sad trivia--I looked into the cast after watching this and discovered that Dunja Movar, the actress who under-played Ophelia, committed suicide only a few years after this was made...)
I unironically love this version of Hamlet. It's an outlier among all the genre films they usually riffed, and maybe that's why it's one of my favorite episodes too.
It is honestly one of the strangest dubbing choices I've ever seen... We have a German production of an English play about a Danish King and an American studio went with an Hispanic accent... I love it but I don't know how that happened.
Maybe they felt Mr. Montalban's voice was fitting to work with how Claudius is when you think of the story of Hamlet and how manipulative, frightful, and also dangerous he can be.
@@TheBonkleFox That actually makes sense. In the play, several people see the ghost but Hamlet is the only one who can hear it. Maybe it was all in his head.
@@GrixieKong I mean, I feel like it could have worked during the scene with hamlet going off on his mother. show a few quick shots of the ghost walking into frame and then the rest of the shots have him just out of frame so we cut between hamlet and gertrude's perspectives.... then again "budget" and "framing" aren't exactly things this movie did elsewhere.
This production of Hamlet is based on a minimalist adaptation stage design of the play that is stripped down and barebones. Hence the lack of backgrounds, the simplified script that cuts out filler, minimum props and the reduction of Hamlets ghost as a disembodied voice.
@@tommyjonq No. It's the original British spelling of the word. And since English came from British Colonists who brought it to the New World it could be argued it is the CORRECT spelling.
Leave it to MST3k to tackle one of my favorite authors’ work and make a very BLAH movie into something absolutely wonderful and perfect! Also, HI KHAN! HI SERGEANT SCHULTZ!
It's the fan bass. Most of the audience are scifi fans, and they expect the cast to hold to and riff bad sci-fi films. I remember when this aired, and it caught me off guard too. I thought it was refreshing to see them riff Hamlet. It takes real balls to poke fun at Bill Shakespeare.
Pearl's sarcasm is actually refreshing... I think she's growing on me the more I see of the later season episodes. And it was interesting to hear "Khan" dub Shakespeare, too. Every time I heard him, I was thinking where's Tatu? "De plain, boss, de plain! The rebellion is in de plain!"
'she's trying to section 8 herself out of the film' and the rest of the banter through the Mad Ophelia scene is utterly priceless ending with 'don't get a boner'.😂😂😂
"😩I shall never look upon his like again." 🤨Why were you lookin' at his like? That one gets me every time. Also Tom's rendition of "Saturday Night Fever." (I can't listen to that song on the radio without thinking of that scene.)
It's crazy how intertwined Star Trek and Shakespeare are. I think I recognize the voice actor for Hamlet as a character on TOS. The guy who took over that mental health institution!
Schell did his own English dubbing for this version. But you're right, Star Trek was highly Shakespearean, count all the episode titles lifted straight from The Bard
Wow! Thanks for the insight! I've been looking for this info for a while actually. This version is hard to track down... Of course one cannot appreciate Shakespeare until they read it in the original Klingon!
I love this episode, but does anyone know where I can find the complete, non-riffed, version? I know it sounds weird but I've had a really hard time getting to sleep, and I know this movie on its own would do the trick. And might I add, when this episode first aired, and Servo started singing, 'Night Fever' while they were dancing, I laughed so hard that I woke up my parents.
I know this episode is controversial amongst fans; it isn't one of my favorites to be sure. But I respect that in their final season they could've just coasted and instead challenged themselves with this difficult riff fodder.
This has never been one of my favorites, but to be honest, it's grown on me. Some of the comments are really funny. I also agree with you about them doing something besides "easy" stuff. :)
yeah, NOT a fan of this. I could barely understand the movie actors because of their german accent. Could they BE any germaner? Not knowing what they said meant I couldn't appreciate the comments from mike and the bots :(
I was shocked recently to read the 2018 ranking of every MST3K episode by Jim Vorel of Paste. Much of what he writes is right on target, but his most egregious mistake is this one. Of the 197 episodes, including the reboot, he ranks this one 189. He writes, "This is one episode where the film is so boring that even the crew of the SOL seems to be infected by that virulent strain of boredom....Even people who actually are big Shakespeare geeks tend to hate this episode, although I have known one or two MST3k fans who loved it." I'm not sure if he saw the same episode as the rest of us, because while it's true the German film is terrible, the riffing is some of the most inspired in the entire series. And there is more than one MST3K fan who agrees with me, as these comments show.
Interesting. In my view, this lower-than-low-budget Hamlet is not nearly as bad as the crew makes it out to be--after all, it's still Hamlet. I have a hunch so many people are "bored" by it because they don't know the actual play. The SOL crew obviously does know it, and you're right, the riffing is hilarious throughout.
Most "ranking" articles are frustrating and disappointing (especially anything in Rolling Stone) . My own rankings of my favorite whatevers are right on point, however
You plotting to RULE THE WORLD, Marina? If so, I would make a great cringing lackey, there to serve your every need, utter false flatteries, and take the occasional beating. Just let me know.....
I've watched this episode so many times and I have to wonder why the original dubbers felt the need to dub a german version of hamlet for English-speaking audiences. It's not like there weren't many other adaptations of Hamlet.
I don't think anyone in Germany watched it. They had to turn a profit elsewhere, starting in Poland, then Austria, then Czechoslovakia and down into Yugoslavia and onward toward Africa, and thereabouts, if not in that order.
Just a guess but 1960 = Cold War. West Germany had hundreds of thousands of NATO troops, civilian contractors, etc. If this was run on television I'm sure it was dubbed in a few languages. But that's definitely Maximillian Schell's voice doing his own English VO.
*puts on his Masters of English Lit hat* The slow pacing and sluggish delivery of most of the dialogue actually serves to underline the unspoken tension of this play. Shakespeare strove to give Hamlet every conceivable motivation to fly into a rage and bring fire and fury down on his Uncle... and he proceeds to talk himself out of doing anything repeatedly through out the play. One can almost imagine the play Hamlet prefigures Waiting for Godot or even Seinfeld in that it is a play about things NOT happening, about nothing. Maybe Shakespeare was challenging himself. To an Elizabethan audience the explosion of multiple deaths at the end would have been a dynamic resolution to an almost unbearable four hours of suspense (give or take, it is likely that the full text was hardly ever preformed even in Shakespeare's day). So while this is a flawed production, some of the major challenges to a modern audience actually feed into the original themes. *takes off hat* Throw in some citations and a bibliography and that wouldn't be a bad start to at least an Undergrad level paper...
Or it was okay to just drag this out to four hours because what else was there for the audience to do? Never understood why Hamlet was so surprised about Mom getting married so quickly. They're royalty. Marriage was more about keeping power than love. When Dad died they had to move to keep control, didn't they?
@@robotrix But remarrying would weaken the realm by creating a potential succession crisis between Hamlet and Claudius/Claudius's eventual son. They already have an heir, they don't need another one. If anything, by the standards of the Elizabethan audience, it would be very sketchy for Claudius to end up the king in the first place - Hamlet should be king, with his mother remaining as regent if necessary (it probably wouldn't be, but it's always hard to tell how old Hamlet's supposed to be). It would be permissible for a widowed queen to remarry if that was the _only_ way to carry on the line, just about, but dubious otherwise.
As an English professor, this is my favorite version of Hamlet. "The great 'What time is it?' argument from Hamlet!"
Glad I'm not the only one. I thought Maximilian Schell portrayed Hamlet's detachment, gallows humor, and nihilism better than anyone else I've seen. And the brutalist concrete-slab set (that manages to look plausibly like stone), the black & white footage, and the lighting choices really set the mood nicely. I also really liked the decision to make certain of Hamlet's soliloquys be audible thoughts rather than spoken lines.
It's a bit of a bummer to lose Rosencrantz and Guildenstern (other than that one lineless scene they have), but of course that's to be expected in a production this short. To me, the only weak point of this production is Ophelia. Her "descent into madness" was totally unbelievable. I guess part of that's actually a script problem, but while she played the pain Hamlet caused her pretty well, she didn't make the madness seem naturalistic at all (unlike Schell).
@@DanHarkless_Halloween_YTPs_etc their Polonius is amazing. He’s such a grubby, condescending ass-kisser in this production.
“What is it, Cold-Water-on-the-Groin? I mean, Polonius?”
We read this in my High School English Lit class. We all took turns reading the parts, etc... after the Queen's lines regarding Ophelia, I blurted out "So.... the creek." Everybody laughed...
Well, I laughed.
19:57 “Murder most fowl.” 😅
I like that the very INSTANT Hamlet appears on screen, Crow blurts out his most famous line, to be shushed by Servo.
This episode is what got me into Shakespeare. True story.
The Believability Rating on this post is quite high...
My local library invoked my Shakespearean interest (also true story).
Hey, however it is we appreciate the humor, we still do all the same.
What got you out?
THIS did? Were you just curious to see if it was really this bad?
@@AliasUndercover Yes. Horrible movies can get people into cool things. For example, I know people who saw the Queen movie and, despite how flat and made-for-TV it seemed, it got them into the great music of Queen.
I'd forgotten how good this episode is. In fact, it probably ranks as one of the top 10 or 12 in the show's history.
"Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished..."
(Snickering like an adolescent boy) "Especially with Ophelia, man."
You really have to admire the MST3K writers for having the guts to take this one on; I can only imagine that this was a very difficult source to riff but they rose to the challenge and it remains a unique episode.
...that, and Dachshund Day would be a pretty damned funny holiday.
I know what you mean. It's like when they did This Island Earth and how it was said by one of the guys that it was hard to come up with riffs for it.
I think The Bard would have respected the effort -- Maybe not the movie but surely the MST treatment
Yeah, this is like the Lassie episode. That movie has so little dialogue to work with, but they pull it off. I wonder sometimes if they just wanted to challenge themselves.
Mike: "It's a good thing he unfolded himself; he was pretty creased up there."
To be or not to be. That is the question.
I'll take to be for 50, Alex🤣🤣
" move thine ass" My favorite riff 😆
"Ladies an gentlemen, Patti LaBelle!" This is one of my favorites.
LET US TO BRUNCH
“You think you can take me? Well go ahead on”. Mike channeling his inner Joe Don Baker
you better run
@@RavnerRavner Or he'll steal your lunch.
@@finalunusedname You better hide ... YOUR LUUUUUUUNCH!!!!
You better hide! Your lunch! 😂❤❤❤
"That's from 'Hamlet,' isn't it?!?'" IS THE BEST LINE IN MST3K HISTORY!!! BRAVO! 👏👏👏👏👏😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂
The "Night Fever" scene always has me in stitches!!
You know, unedited Hamlet is a four hour long play... so why does THIS still feel longer than all the other versions!!!
The complete lack of quality and competence, as well as being one of the dullest looking black and white movies ever, looking for all the world like it was shot inside an abandoned prison. Even Mel Gibson's Hamlet made up for some of its shortcomings by having some stellar cinematography, but there is nearly nothing good about this one.
I think someone noted the pauses were cut out. Shakespeare is all about the pauses that let your brain rest. It's so tedious without them.
@@andrewfrankovic6821 acting it out in english class was less dull. and we were just sitting with most people stumbling through the lines.
@@TheBonkleFox When I'm really really really in the mood and well nourished Shakespeare is oHH'k with me. It also helps if it's done really right. I had a college professor who was awesome when he read out little bits here and there.
@@andrewfrankovic6821 see to me it's more that you have to do the lines with emotion, but if you put too much emotion into it it just starts sounding like purple prose and people tune out very easily.
'"Get thee to a nunnery!" "Actually, i may go to grad school." If I had a dollar for every time i had that exact same conversation when a relationship went wrong...
"We've decided to cut his throat in a church!"
"I'm going to Lady Macbeth's!"
"Hamlet! Get off your mom!"
Lol English lit in-jokes.
it's funny and all but you don't really have to be in english lit to understand the first one since that's literally what happened a few minutes (in movie time) ago.....well ok it feels like hours since this is the most boring version of hamlet concievable.
@@TheBonkleFox No you're right I just really think that first one is just so hilarious.
I love Ricardo Montalban doing the voice of Claudius, also John Banner doing that of Polonius.
It's truly Klandinctu!
I thought I recognized the voice!!!! Wow thank you for posting that, I thought I was going even more crazy.
The John Banner was great!
Rich Corenthian Leather!
Hamlet faxed me a soliloquy!
I would unironically watch a furniture version of Hamlet.
Or the underwater version
There's a lot you could with that
This is one of the best episodes, especially if anyone's read Hamlet.
It was actually my introduction to the full tale , and a glorious one at that. The jokes are some of the best but I actually dug the minimalist design and Schell’s performance.
Ophelia was on point.
"Why were you lookin at his like?" makes me lol every time
Hamlet's soliloquy being played over the end theme song is actually kinda cool
This trio puts the "silly" in "soliloquy".
This is the most wholesome little joke 💖
First episode I ever watched. Almost 20 years ago to this day back when they used to air this on Sci Fi
me when the only place I can afford to film hamlet is a parking garage
Mike: You're under Danish arrest!
Crow: OK, OK, mistakes were made...!
"...Night fever, night fever....we know how to do it..." in the big dance scene....hilarious 😂❤
“Here’s a skull..” not a bad skull, it’s a starter skull, but a good skull.
Gotta love how mike is a trope namer for inadvertently destroying worlds constantly, but then here he probably just inadvertently saved the entire planet just through a rigged find the queen game.
Technically Bobo saved the planet by annoying Pearl.
I'm already feeling daft for saying this but I thought Pearl was firing on the SOL, not a planet.
What am I missing?
Besides brain cells.
@@steveharvey2102 it would fall to earth and kill millions
@@mrcritical6751 Interesting. I assumed it would burn up on reentry. I know I'm already into the, "I should just relax" territory but I'm curious. How big is the sol, compared to, let's say, an apple, or a baseball bat ;) Hope you've seen the Rifftrax short, "Measuring Man", for that reference.
TBS. How big is the SOL, compared to, let's say, The Challenger? I know they didn't leave the earth's atmosphere but I'm just curious about the size.
The answer, "I'm Huge" , will not be accepted :)
@@Pocketrocket-pj1us It's whatever size works best for a given joke, of course. Sometimes it's implied that one "lobe" is the room the host segments are shown in and the other is the theater, and there's nothing else to the ship. At various other times it's got at least twelve decks, a squash court, and a feedlot where Crow raises his prize-winning pigs.
My grandma taped this for me years ago, and I remember the ads were all for Ask Jeeves and Pitch Black.
I like the fact that the riffers still have a lot of respect for and knowledge of the source material even if it's not well executed. For example, Mike's comment that "to be or not to be" is the literary equivalent of "DA-DA-DA-DUUUMMM!!!"
Well, Mike did request _Hamlet,_ it's natural he'd appreciate it if it wasn't so... well... _this._
@@JamaicanCastle BTS info:. As this was the last broadcast season, the crew were given carte blanche to choose what they wished in terms of riffing, and this was something they chose for themselves just for fun.
Even nerds will lovingly poke fun at the classics. That's what made shows like MONTY PYTHON'S FLYING CIRCUS and ANIMANIACS so surprisingly clever.
Lots of good lines but when Hamlet is talking with his father's ghost..." murder, murder most foul"...Crow's response "They murdered a chicken"? And then Hamlet to Ophelia "I'm very proud, revengeful and ambitious" ...Tom Servo "Oh, he's republican" - just those two alone made it so worthwhile.
To be fair, n as a registered democrat, there are plenty of dems fitting that also!
@@davidschwartz6380Different side of the same coin
I think the best riff is the very last one they make:
(Mike Nelson:) Pff, nice play Shakespeare!
I actually like this version of "Hamlet". First, I love Maximilian Schell. His performance is hammy (so to speak) when it needs to be, like when he's pretending to be crazy, and it's subtle at other times, like when Laertes stabs him and he realizes it's a *real* sword, or when he's doing the "Alas, poor Yorick" speech.
Second, I like some of the choices this production makes with the play. It actually shows the part where Hamlet "comes before" Ophelia after seeing his father's ghost instead of just having Ophelia run to her father and tell him about it. Makes me wonder about the hour and a half of footage that never made it into the episode. I'd like to see how the whole production turned out.
I never thought it was possible to make a tragedy by Shakespeare even more depressing but this movie proved me wrong.
What's worse than clown? Danish clowns!
"Go *a lot* to England."
Sound advice for all of these actors, really.
6:14
Is that Hamlet?
No, that's his friend Riblet.
*No, that's Neil Patrick Harris*
No, this is Patrick.
"I drink to you Hamlet"
"Whatever!"
LoL!!
"what is it, Cold water ont he groin, i mean Polonius?" I love that line
"Honey, what happened to all the ear poison?"
Ear poison? Shades/foreshadowing of Khan putting the worms into the ears of Chekhov and Paul Winfield.
I teach high school English, and I've taught this play...and my daughter is a theatre major in college (costume design, not acting)...we sat down last night and watched this...and laughed louder and harder at this than at anything in a LONG time. Having Ricardo Montelban's voice come out of a chubby German, and "Sgt. Schultz" aka John Banner's voice out of Polonius is sheer clumsy genius. And the riffing over the last fight scene is brilliant. The best parody is done by those who love what they are insulting--and they are at their peak here.
(Sad trivia--I looked into the cast after watching this and discovered that Dunja Movar, the actress who under-played Ophelia, committed suicide only a few years after this was made...)
That's hilarious!
I'd love to riff Richard the Third.
"My kingdom for a Horse!"
"Craigslist would love this post"
Wow. Both of you need to get out and laugh more. I read liebnitz for fun and mostly never leave my DAW and I’m saying this
Thst's really very sad because she's not bad in the role, at all. Rest in peace to her.
I unironically love this version of Hamlet. It's an outlier among all the genre films they usually riffed, and maybe that's why it's one of my favorite episodes too.
I want to see David Tennant there watching this and helping with the commentary.
He’d probably be too busy laughing
...why?
Thats actually a fun idea for a host.
@@lookbovine he was a great Hamlet, that's why!
34:44 IT'S HAMELT-MAN!! STILL can't stop laughing.
RIP Biz Markie, the last time we'll ever get the chance too look at his femur
That's Ricardo Montalban dubbing Claudius!
KHAN!
Yep! One of the many awesome things about this episode!
"I'll chase him round the Moons of Nibia and round the Antares Maelstrom and round Perdition's flames before I give him up!"
It is honestly one of the strangest dubbing choices I've ever seen... We have a German production of an English play about a Danish King and an American studio went with an Hispanic accent... I love it but I don't know how that happened.
Maybe they felt Mr. Montalban's voice was fitting to work with how Claudius is when you think of the story of Hamlet and how manipulative, frightful, and also dangerous he can be.
Should've gotten Shatner to voice Hamlets father: CLAUUUUD....ius.
"Is there a word in the English language he hasn't said?" Hilarious!!
“Camera two! Cut to camera two!”
“The ghost, show us THE GHOST!!”
Seriously, why did they never show Hamlet’s father?!
I think it's cause they wanted to play it up as hamlet being delusional, but still....
@@TheBonkleFox That actually makes sense. In the play, several people see the ghost but Hamlet is the only one who can hear it. Maybe it was all in his head.
@@GrixieKong I mean, I feel like it could have worked during the scene with hamlet going off on his mother. show a few quick shots of the ghost walking into frame and then the rest of the shots have him just out of frame so we cut between hamlet and gertrude's perspectives.... then again "budget" and "framing" aren't exactly things this movie did elsewhere.
Well you see, if you never _show_ Hamlet's father, you don't have to _cast_ Hamlet's father.
This production of Hamlet is based on a minimalist adaptation stage design of the play that is stripped down and barebones. Hence the lack of backgrounds, the simplified script that cuts out filler, minimum props and the reduction of Hamlets ghost as a disembodied voice.
"Murder most foul."
"He killed a chicken?"
Why has nobody mentioned the incredibly ultra-modern concrete and rebar set design? What kind of crazy futurist production is this?
Oooooooooooh, that was very, very widely imitated theatre (spelled with "re" at the end) affectation of the Avant-Garde.
In the lat're' 70's I saw A Midsummer's Night Dream done on a slanted, wooden disk. It was actually quite good.
I think most of those earlier alternative productions were trying to incorporate Railing Kills into any action.
@@tommyjonq No. It's the original British spelling of the word. And since English came from British Colonists who brought it to the New World it could be argued it is the CORRECT spelling.
@@andrewfrankovic6821 Dont forget the Midsummer version taking place at the turn of the 20th century with all the Bicycles
Leave it to MST3k to tackle one of my favorite authors’ work and make a very BLAH movie into something absolutely wonderful and perfect!
Also, HI KHAN! HI SERGEANT SCHULTZ!
"A production that likes to show people watching other people!"
-Mike foresaw RUclips's rash of "reaction videos."
you do realize "show people watching other people" is the entire core of mst3k right?
@@sigurdgram Lmaooo yeah XD
I want to see a version of Hamlet that actually has a jet ski chase.
Cröe.. Idk how any mstie can say that episode is not very good, I love it. But then again.. I love all of the episodes.
It's the fan bass. Most of the audience are scifi fans, and they expect the cast to hold to and riff bad sci-fi films. I remember when this aired, and it caught me off guard too. I thought it was refreshing to see them riff Hamlet. It takes real balls to poke fun at Bill Shakespeare.
SmokingSpoon also Shakespeare even done badly is still incredibly well written. So it’s not as riffable.
Purse your beak Mike.
Mine too.
@@dustincantrell6712 The fan bass? But what about the fan salmon?
I like this version of Hamlet.
"WOULD YOU JUST GET OVER HERE!?!"
If Michael Bay had directed this there’d be a lot more explosions and car crashes.
And more titties
Wow, the To Be or Not To Be monologue really fit with the credits theme nicely.
I think they chopped out some pauses.
daffers234 Understandable, considering it has to have fit within the credits timeslot.
Is that a good thing? This is a cure for insomnia.
Funny how Pearl still sort of won, BUT she also had to choke on it because Mike had conned her too.
6.02 "good there's gonna be railing kills, he he he he". classic.
This proves no matter how you couch Hamlet it’s only slightly more bearable then a fork in the eye.
"Tonight I'm gonna unleash the Great Dane." All right guys, lol.
"Moe, Larry, and Horatio!"
Why does Gertrude's hair look like Bram Stoker's Dracula?
9:11 One of the best "this sounds like another song" jokes in the entire run!
Who's there? Un-staple yourself!
MST riffs Shakespeare. I absolutely love this episode.
Me too! Super unpopular episode for most mysties tho 😅
Pearl's sarcasm is actually refreshing... I think she's growing on me the more I see of the later season episodes.
And it was interesting to hear "Khan" dub Shakespeare, too.
Every time I heard him, I was thinking where's Tatu? "De plain, boss, de plain! The rebellion is in de plain!"
“Danish clowns: the dank, smelly, silverfish-infested basement of the clown world…”
'she's trying to section 8 herself out of the film' and the rest of the banter through the Mad Ophelia scene is utterly priceless ending with 'don't get a boner'.😂😂😂
"😩I shall never look upon his like again."
🤨Why were you lookin' at his like?
That one gets me every time.
Also Tom's rendition of "Saturday Night Fever." (I can't listen to that song on the radio without thinking of that scene.)
Hell yea! Riffin on my favorite Shakespeare play!!!!!
It's crazy how intertwined Star Trek and Shakespeare are. I think I recognize the voice actor for Hamlet as a character on TOS. The guy who took over that mental health institution!
Schell did his own English dubbing for this version. But you're right, Star Trek was highly Shakespearean, count all the episode titles lifted straight from The Bard
Wow! Thanks for the insight! I've been looking for this info for a while actually. This version is hard to track down...
Of course one cannot appreciate Shakespeare until they read it in the original Klingon!
Dude, the voice of Claudius is Khan from Star Trek 2! Funny, he’s out for revenge in that movie kinda like Hamlet.
You've not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon.
This is one of my favorite episodes.
Me too! Most mysties hate it tho 😅
"To die, to sleep, to sleep, perchance to dream, aye, there's the rub"
Mike: I knew I had some rub left! 😂😂😂😂😂😂
Uh, honey, can you get mommy a fresh margarita?
I love this episode, but does anyone know where I can find the complete, non-riffed, version? I know it sounds weird but I've had a really hard time getting to sleep, and I know this movie on its own would do the trick.
And might I add, when this episode first aired, and Servo started singing, 'Night Fever' while they were dancing, I laughed so hard that I woke up my parents.
Not a bad performances.
Tried BitTorrent?
For years I listened to the BBC radio version of Julius Cesar. Beautiful and soothing.
@@AmazingJeeves Yeah, no soap.
@@GeoffNelson Ooh! That sounds lovely. Gotta try something like that. 🙂
"Let there be Sunny D for everyone!"
"Hey, isn't that from Hamlet?" 🤔😂
Love this episode. My two favorite things
Kind of surreal to see Mike talk about having an uncle living in McAllen, TX. That's where I am!
Knifegash Hopefully a better uncle than this guy. 😝
Mike is actually from my hometown, and Crow even makes reference to it in 'Terror From the Year 5000'
Hylian Fox
Did that shipment of Terror ever arrive From the Year 5000?
I know this episode is controversial amongst fans; it isn't one of my favorites to be sure. But I respect that in their final season they could've just coasted and instead challenged themselves with this difficult riff fodder.
This has never been one of my favorites, but to be honest, it's grown on me. Some of the comments are really funny. I also agree with you about them doing something besides "easy" stuff. :)
yeah, NOT a fan of this. I could barely understand the movie actors because of their german accent. Could they BE any germaner? Not knowing what they said meant I couldn't appreciate the comments from mike and the bots :(
Greg Lytle mine too. It's taken me weeks to find it to see it again... last time was well over 10 yrs ago. Worth the wait. It's a fav.
👍
It's grown on me. The last 15-20 minutes from the "cut his throat in a church" to the end is hilarious. Great riffing!
Well.......at least it's well written.
Hamlet was the defense attorney in 'Judgment at Nuremburg."
Really? That's very interesting.
So that’s where I know him from!
I love how Claudius always looks urpy.
I was shocked recently to read the 2018 ranking of every MST3K episode by Jim Vorel of Paste. Much of what he writes is right on target, but his most egregious mistake is this one. Of the 197 episodes, including the reboot, he ranks this one 189. He writes, "This is one episode where the film is so boring that even the crew of the SOL seems to be infected by that virulent strain of boredom....Even people who actually are big Shakespeare geeks tend to hate this episode, although I have known one or two MST3k fans who loved it." I'm not sure if he saw the same episode as the rest of us, because while it's true the German film is terrible, the riffing is some of the most inspired in the entire series. And there is more than one MST3K fan who agrees with me, as these comments show.
Interesting. In my view, this lower-than-low-budget Hamlet is not nearly as bad as the crew makes it out to be--after all, it's still Hamlet. I have a hunch so many people are "bored" by it because they don't know the actual play. The SOL crew obviously does know it, and you're right, the riffing is hilarious throughout.
Most "ranking" articles are frustrating and disappointing (especially anything in Rolling Stone) . My own rankings of my favorite whatevers are right on point, however
"My nipple came off, you jerk!"
So unexpected 😂
I suggest a new title: The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, is out; The Tragedy of Hamlet, A Movie to Commit Suicide By, is in
I did like the twist letting Mike pick the movie. Greatest play ever written, what could possibly go wrong?
Go ahead on! Loved the shout-out to Joe Don Baker -- Imagine HIM as Hamlet!
Pearl Forester is my personal role model.
She reminds me of an auntie of mine ... same mannerisms and everything. I think she's funny too :)
daffers234 I like Pearl. she gave me a mint from her purse!
You plotting to RULE THE WORLD, Marina? If so, I would make a great cringing lackey, there to serve your every need, utter false flatteries, and take the occasional beating. Just let me know.....
10:26 Juicy Got Me Crazy 😆
where is thelonious?
he came down with an unexpected case of _MURDER_ !!
😂🤣😂🤣
That reminds me of the Felonious Monk reference in Final Justice.
23:23, “What is it boy? Uncle killed Dad, hmmm?” 👏 😂
This is almost unwatchably bad, but I love that they found an in-universe reason to riff a truly awful version of "Hamlet."
To watch it or not watch it-That is the question.
I've watched this episode so many times and I have to wonder why the original dubbers felt the need to dub a german version of hamlet for English-speaking audiences. It's not like there weren't many other adaptations of Hamlet.
I don't think anyone in Germany watched it. They had to turn a profit elsewhere, starting in Poland, then Austria, then Czechoslovakia and down into Yugoslavia and onward toward Africa, and thereabouts, if not in that order.
They promised Ricardo Montelban a role in a Shakespearean play and this was the only thing they could afford.
Just a guess but 1960 = Cold War. West Germany had hundreds of thousands of NATO troops, civilian contractors, etc. If this was run on television I'm sure it was dubbed in a few languages. But that's definitely Maximillian Schell's voice doing his own English VO.
Think I preferred The Screaming Skull. More skulls. Gotta have more skulls. They keep me alert. "To sleep, TO SLEEP!" I hear ya, dude.
You’re not being hypnotized, merely bored.
“I don’t think so, breeder.” 😂
*puts on his Masters of English Lit hat* The slow pacing and sluggish delivery of most of the dialogue actually serves to underline the unspoken tension of this play. Shakespeare strove to give Hamlet every conceivable motivation to fly into a rage and bring fire and fury down on his Uncle... and he proceeds to talk himself out of doing anything repeatedly through out the play. One can almost imagine the play Hamlet prefigures Waiting for Godot or even Seinfeld in that it is a play about things NOT happening, about nothing. Maybe Shakespeare was challenging himself. To an Elizabethan audience the explosion of multiple deaths at the end would have been a dynamic resolution to an almost unbearable four hours of suspense (give or take, it is likely that the full text was hardly ever preformed even in Shakespeare's day). So while this is a flawed production, some of the major challenges to a modern audience actually feed into the original themes.
*takes off hat* Throw in some citations and a bibliography and that wouldn't be a bad start to at least an Undergrad level paper...
Or it was okay to just drag this out to four hours because what else was there for the audience to do? Never understood why Hamlet was so surprised about Mom getting married so quickly. They're royalty. Marriage was more about keeping power than love. When Dad died they had to move to keep control, didn't they?
Tension? What tension? Tension? TENSION! WHO'S TENSE? JUST BRING THIS NIGHTMARE TO AN END. Fencing without gardening and forestry? Just klll me.
Even Seinfeld said Seinfeld is not a show about nothing. He said,"George said that, but George is an idiot."
Love the analysis!
@@robotrix But remarrying would weaken the realm by creating a potential succession crisis between Hamlet and Claudius/Claudius's eventual son. They already have an heir, they don't need another one. If anything, by the standards of the Elizabethan audience, it would be very sketchy for Claudius to end up the king in the first place - Hamlet should be king, with his mother remaining as regent if necessary (it probably wouldn't be, but it's always hard to tell how old Hamlet's supposed to be). It would be permissible for a widowed queen to remarry if that was the _only_ way to carry on the line, just about, but dubious otherwise.
41:29 And now the tragedy of King Vitamin.
17:48 - "Heh-heh, I got a Stick, heh-heh!" >:D
Forgot how funny that was, I'm laughing so hard my lungs can't seem to catch up! XD