"Blackbeard's Ghost" (1968)

It's a little difficult to describe Blackbeard's Ghost (1968).  It kind of defies genre-ization, and it's astonishingly quirky.  Maybe that's why it's not as well known as some other Disney live-action movies from the 1960s.  That is a shame, because I think it is one of their funniest and most unique films of that era.  It was a big hit at the time, and received well by audiences and critics alike. 

Blackbeard's Ghost is about a morally upright -- even uptight -- college track coach accidentally calling the ghost of Blackbeard the pirate out of limbo and then being dragged into and rescued from a series of mishaps, hi-jinks, and calamities.  That's the best I can do at summing it up in one long and complicated sentence.  

This movie bears some big similarities to both The Shaggy Dog (1959) and The Absent-Minded Professor (1961), two live-action Disney films I grew up watching over and over on VHS.  I think the use of "a mysterious force/thing/person helping a hapless team of wannabes win a sporting competition" is far funnier in Blackbeard than in Professor, possibly because the event has higher stakes within the movie.  And I think the way Blackbeard explores the idea of having a perfectly ordinary person read a mysterious incantation aloud and inadvertently bring about some magical hi-jinks works better than The Shaggy Dog (1959).  In this case, it's funnier because the incantation doesn't turn the reader into a dog... it brings Edward Teach, better known as the pirate Blackbeard, back to life

Well, sorta.  It's complicated.

The story revolves around Blackbeard's Inn, a fanciful old hulk built from bits of wrecked ships that floated to shore over the centuries.  It's inhabited by a couple dozen little old ladies that call themselves the Daughters of the Buccaneers.  These ladies are about to lose their home because they can't pay off a big mortgage on their inn.

A local gangster named Silky Seymour (Joby Baker) is intent on making sure the old ladies don't pay off their loan because he wants to tear down Blackbeard's Inn and build a casino on the little spit of land that houses it.  Some tiny technicality of the law means it is the only place where he could build a legal casino in the state, so... if the Daughters of the Buccaneers can't come up with thousands of dollars by the end of the week to pay off their loan, out they go, and he gets to build his casino.  

As a villain, Silky Seymour feels a little tame, even for an old Disney movie.  He wouldn't stand a chance against Frank Stillwell from The Apple Dumpling Gang (1975), Long John Silver from Treasure Island (1950), or even Vicky from The Parent Trap (1961).

Anyway, enter our hero, Steve Walker (Dean Jones), the new track coach for Godolphin College.  Dean Jones is the perfect choice for this role because he exudes kindness and genuine niceness... but he is also excellent at portraying frustration.  He makes us believe Steve truly wants to do the right thing, to be nice to other people, but that he also doesn't have infinite patience.  That makes him feel human, and his humanity grounds a story that could otherwise devolve into too much silliness.

Steve quickly meets his love interest, Professor Jo Anne Baker (Suzanne Pleshette), who also works at Godolphin College.  She's friends with the Daughters of the Buccaneers and helps them organize a fundraiser to save their home.  The fundraiser does raise quite a bit of money, but not nearly enough to save Blackbeard's Inn.  Pleshette does a fine job acting shocked, incredulous, surprised, and suspicious as called for by the script, but I never really quite figure out why she falls for Steve.  Or why he falls for her.  I think Pleshette and Jones have way better chemistry a few years later in The Shaggy D.A. (1976).

One broken antique, one funny incantation, and a few special effects later, and lo and behold, Blackbeard (Peter Ustinov) has returned to the land of the living from the limbo realm where his dead wife Aldetha's curse had sent him when he died.

The minute Peter Ustinov arrives on the scene, the movie jolts into high gear.  I sometimes joke that I wonder if they had to pay him anything at all to play Blackbeard -- he is so obviously having the most enormous amount of fun in every scene!  Ustinov plays the pirate as conniving, selfish, bad-tempered, loud... and an absolute softie at heart.  Ustinov rants and roars and chortles and wheedles and yowls his way through the movie, and I love every minute of it.  He might chew up a goodly portion of the scenery, but he stops short of taking bites out of his co-stars, at least.

The comedic chemistry between Peter Ustinov and Dean Jones is perfect.  Watching them play off each other is an absolute delight.  Their every interaction is hilarious and poignant and relatable, and I'm in awe of how they pull off that specific mixture.

Blackbeard and Steve take turns being angry with each other and feeling sorry for each other, and I'm not sure which is funnier.

Blackbeard decides he needs to do something really good to make up for all the bad things he's done in life, and that will enable him to leave reality AND limbo behind.  Bad theology, but a good recipe for a funny movie.  Blackbeard decides he will help the Daughters of the Buccaneers save their home, and that will earn him his ticket out.  He will bet lots of money on Godolphin's track team and then ensure they win their meet.  However, Steve insists Blackbeard cannot and must not use his ghostly powers to make the team win by cheating!  

At one point, Blackbeard opines, "I perceive now how difficult it be to do a good deed in this dirty world."  I think that's a central theme for the movie: that our world and the people in it are in no way better than the world and the people of Blackbeard's day.  Cheaters prosper, so good guys must find ways to cheat the cheaters.  A dubious moral, maybe, but one that provides a lot of laughs.

One of my favorite random things about this movie is this sportscaster, who is played by Elliott Reid.  Reid played an English professor in The Absent-Minded Professor who also taught at a small-town college, and I kind of wish they had tied this movie to that one via this character.  Like, maybe had him be Shelby Ashton, now an ex-professor who discovered being a sports commentator was more lucrative?  And who makes comments about having flashbacks to a really weird basketball game once a few years ago.  They don't do it, so it's just my head-canon.

I can never decide what is the funniest part of the movie.  It might be the track meet, which involves So Many Madcap Exploits and funny sight gags.  Plus, Blackbeard doing a dance with a bunch of cheerleaders, which Ustinov absolutely rocks.

But the funniest part also might be the final showdown with Silky Seymour and his goons, because it involves finger guns.

So many finger guns.

Yes, I agree.  A shocking number of finger guns.  And every minute with them is funny!

All's well that ends well, of course.  It's a classic Disney movie.  All the good characters get a happy ending, including Blackbeard.  

Is this movie family friendly?  Absolutely.  There are a couple of low-level scary moments involving Aldetha's portrait, lightning, and Elsa Lanchester telling a spooky story.  And Silky Seymour's men pull guns out of their coats so they can kill our heroes, but are prevented from doing so.  Also, gambling and dishonesty aren't exactly portrayed as being the worst ideas in the world, which some families may object to.  But there's no cussing, no real violence, and no smut.  I don't think Steve and Jo Anne even kiss.

This is my contribution to the Make 'Em Laugh Blogathon hosted this week by the Classic Movie Blog Association.

"The Princess Bride" (1987)

I was ten or eleven years old the first time I saw The Princess Bride.  We were spending our summer vacation in Iowa, visiting our relatives, as our family always did.  My aunt invited my mom and brother and I over for the afternoon to watch a movie with her, and with her youngest son, who was two years older than me and the cousin I always got along best with.  They had a good collection of movies on VHS for us to choose from, lots of things we had never seen before, and they usually let us borrow some to watch at my grandparents' house while staying there.  This was the first and only time we actually went over to their house to watch something with them -- I don't know if there was a special occasion I've forgotten, if it was just a rainy day and we were all bored, or what.

While trying to decide what to watch together, my aunt and cousin discovered we had never seen (or heard of) The Princess Bride, and they insisted we had to watch it.  I have such lovely memories of sitting on the floor in front of the TV with my brother and cousin (I can still remember their variegated brown carpet!), with my mom and aunt sitting on the couch behind us, all laughing and cheering through the whole movie.  It was my first experience with a live-action fantasy movie, and my first swashbuckler.  I was enchanted.  

On the drive back to my grandparents' house where we were staying, I heard the Supremes song "Stop in the Name of Love" on the radio for the very first time, and that song has been indelibly linked with The Princess Bride forever in my mind.

I had read just enough fairy tales and adventure stories to understand a lot of how this movie was spoofing and subverting them.  And I loved the framing device (though I didn't know that name for it) of the story being read to a little boy by his grandfather.  But, most of all, I loved Westley (Cary Elwes).  In fact, a year or two later, we named our new dog Westley after him.

The Princess Bride is based on a book by William Goldman, who also wrote the screenplay.  It's about a sick little boy (Fred Savage) whose grandfather (Peter Falk) visits to cheer him up by reading him a book, The Princess Bride.  The boy is skeptical about a book ever being fun, but grudgingly agrees to try not to fall asleep.  And then, of course, gets increasingly invested in the story of Buttercup (Robin Wright) and Westley (Cary Elwes), to the point where he doesn't even mind having to listen to the kissing parts.

I'm not sure if I should even try to summarize this movie.  It's so hard to do without ruining surprises and funny things!  Buttercup and Westley fall in love, but he's poor, so he goes to sea to earn some money for their future life together.  The Dread Pirate Roberts attacks his ship, and everyone knows the Dread Pirate Roberts never takes prisoners alive, so Buttercup is consumed with sorrow.  Eventually, Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon) sees her and decides she's the most beautiful girl in the kingdom, and that means she's the best, so he decides to marry her.  Buttercup doesn't care what happens to her now that she has lost Westley, so she agrees.

And then Buttercup gets kidnapped by a giant named Fezzik (Andre the Giant), a swordsman named Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin), and a wise guy named Vizzini (Wallace Shawn).  And then she gets kidnapped by the Dread Pirate Roberts.  And then she gets rescued by Prince Humperdinck.  And then she gets rescued by the Dread Pirate Roberts and Inigo and Fezzik.  It's a very busy time for Buttercup.

It's full of sword fights and Rodents of Unusual Size and torture Machines and battles of the wits and double crosses.  And I haven't even mentioned Miracle Max (Billy Crystal) and his wife (not witch) Valerie (Carol Kane), who are so funny that Mandy Patinkin reportedly cracked a rib during filming because he had to try so hard not to laugh during their scenes together.

If you have never seen this movie, you should.  If you have seen it before, you should probably watch it again.  It's a pure delight from beginning to end, unless you happen to be my BFF, who is the only person I know besides my dad who has seen it and not liked it.  So... you might not love it.  Or like it.  Or find it funny.  But it's such a cultural touchstone, you should see it at least once.

Is this movie family friendly?  It has two cuss words in it.  It has a non-gory torture scene, which we fast-forwarded through when my brother was little because it was too intense for him.  It has a couple of kisses.  It has a bit of swashbuckling violence, but again, nothing gory.  I'd say it's great for ages 10+, and for younger viewers with a parent to fast-forward if their kids are sensitive or squeamish.

This has been my contribution to the Adventure-a-Thon hosted by Cinematic Catharsis and Realweegiemidget Reviews!

My Ten Favorite Val Kilmer Movies

My heart is still heavy over Val Kilmer's death.  I've been rewatching some of my favorites of his movies, and today, I'm sharing the list of my top ten favorites with you.  

1. Tombstone (1993)

A free-wheeling recreation of that one time Doc Holliday (Val Kilmer) and his friend Wyatt Earp (Kurt Russell), plus Wyatt's brothers (Sam Elliott and Bill Paxton), had a showdown with Ike Clanton and his pals, and Tombstone, Arizona never got over it.  This movie is a wildly good time, particularly every scene Val Kilmer is in.  And the score by Bruce Broughton is one of my all-time favorites.

2. Willow (1988)

A small farmer (Warwick Davis) reluctantly teams up with a big braggart (Val Kilmer) to save a baby princess from a wicked queen (Jean Marsh).  Along the way, the braggart falls in love with the queen's daughter (Joanne Whalley) onscreen and off.  It was one of the first fantasy movies I ever saw, and it's still a dear favorite.

3. Spartan (2004)

When the daughter of an important American government official is kidnapped, an impressively capable agent (Val Kilmer) is sent to retrieve her before she's sold into slavery overseas.  It's a tense thriller that makes plain the all-too-real ease with which human trafficking occurs here in the U.S., and the difficulty in rescuing someone from it.  And it's cool seeing Clark Gregg work with Val Kilmer.

4. Real Genius (1985)

A teen genius (Gabe Jarrett) enters a school for the scientifically gifted, where he and his offbeat roommate (Val Kilmer) try to stay sane while also solving a mystery surrounding just what their scientific discoveries and creations are being used for.  My college roommates and I were obsessed with this movie for a while, and we used to wear these funny headbands around campus (even to classes) as a nod to Val Kilmer's character in this movie.

5. Batman Forever (1995)

Bruce Wayne/Batman (Val Kilmer) tries to stop Harvey Dent/Two-Face (Tommy Lee Jones) and Edward Nygma/The Riddler (Jim Carrey) from taking over Gotham, while also mentoring an orphan (Chris O'Donnell) and romancing a psychiatrist (Nicole Kidman).  Is this movie a dayglo comic book extravaganza?  Yes.  Does it also have a compelling storyline and some really good character development?  Also, yes.  I just rewatched it this week for the first time in a while, and was excited to find I still really love it.

6. The Saint (1997)

Simon Templar (Val Kilmer) is a professional thief who gets involved with Russian spies and a beautiful scientist (Elizabeth Shue) while just trying to do his job: stealing some nuclear macguffin or other.  The real treat here is all the disguises Templar uses, which lets Kilmer transform himself again and again in ridiculously fun ways.

7. Thunderheart (1992)

An FBI agent (Val Kilmer) with Native American heritage is assigned to solve a murder on a Sioux reservation, despite the efforts of others to either cover up the truth or use the crime to pursue their own agendas.  The fact that Val Kilmer had Native heritage himself (he was 1/8 Cherokee) is a total bonus for how perfect he is in this role.  The story is based on true incidents.

8. The Ghost and the Darkness (1996)

A professional hunter (Michael Douglas) teams up with a British engineer (Val Kilmer) to take down two man-killing lions that have been attacking workers trying to build a bridge in Africa.  It often feels like a throwback to the adventure movies of the '50s and '60s, but with more realistic violence.  Maybe that's because the screenplay is by William Goldman, who wrote The Princess Bride (book and screenplay both), as well as screenplays for movies like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and Maverick (1994).

9. Prince of Egypt (1998)

Animated take on the life of Moses (Val Kilmer), growing up in Pharaoh's household and being tasked by God with leading the Jewish nation out of slavery in Egypt into the Promised Land.  Excellent take on the historical account from the Bible, and the songs are really cool, too.

10. Top Gun: Maverick (2022)

An Air Force pilot (Tom Cruise) has to train the wild son (Miles Teller) of his fallen wingman for a dangerous mission.  Val Kilmer gets a small scene as Tom Cruise's former rival and current superior officer, and it's a moving one.

Please note that Tombstone, Spartan, Thunderheart, and The Ghost and the Darkness are all rated R, so you may want to investigate their content levels further before watching them if that is of concern to you.

"Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves" (2023)

This movie surprised me over and over and over.

I first watched Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (2023) about a year ago on an airplane.  My kids all play D&D, and my son is even in a teen D&D group at our local library.  Most of the other teens in that group saw this movie and praised it, so he really wanted to see it too.  But I'm pretty cautious about letting my kids, even my teens, watch movies I haven't seen before, so I told him I'd need to see it first.  I meant to get it out of the library sometime, but then we flew out to visit my parents last fall, and this was one of the in-flight movie options, so I figured, why not?

This movie made me laugh out loud.  Repeatedly.  On an airplane.  It was so smart, so funny, so delightful, that I just couldn't help laughing with glee over it!  I tried to be quiet, but I'm pretty sure I startled my seatmates more than once.  (My kids were all in a row ahead of me, where I could keep an eye on them, but I was sitting by strangers).

D&D: HAT centers on Edgin (Chris Pine), a wryly charming thief who escapes from prison with his best friend, the potato-obsessed warrior, Holga (Michelle Rodriguez).  They set off to rescue Edgin's daughter Kira (Chloe Coleman), who was left alone when Edgin and Holga were imprisoned after a heist gone wrong.  They discover that Kira is being raised by their erstwhile pal Forge (Hugh Grant), who has somehow managed to become lord of the land.  Forge has been lying to Kira, saying that Edgin doesn't love her, abandoned her on purpose, and so on, because he wants to raise her as his own daughter.  He tries to have Edgin and Holga killed, but Holga is not the sort of person who is killed easily.

Edgin and Holga escape and put together a small group of people willing to help them rescue Kira, including a magician with confidence issues named Simon (Justice Smith) and a shapeshifting rebel named Doric (Sophia Lillis).  They try to figure out how to steal Kira away from Forge, but end up uncovering Forge's sinister plot to destroy the whole kingdom.  In order to save Kira, they have to save the kingdom too.

And, lest my kids yell at me, I need to also mention Xenk (Regé-Jean Page), a mystical former warrior who dispenses gifts and advice in the most literal and hilariously dead-pan way possible.  I probably laugh more over Xenk's scenes than all the rest.

I have seen this movie at least five times now, and it delights me every time.  The storytelling is incredibly smart, one of those stories where every piece slots right in where it needs to.  Things that seem random at the beginning are shown to be important later.  It's like one of those pretty 3-D crystal puzzles where you slowly see the whole story take shape and appreciate it more and more as you get to see how things fit together.  

And yet!  The movie also feels like this could be a D&D campaign with a bunch of people making the story up as it goes along.  The dialog is simultaneously witty and sharp and funny, yet also feels like things people would say because they think their character will sound cool saying them.  That is an incredibly tricky balance, but they pull it off.  

Also, although I laugh a lot over this movie, there is a part at the end that always makes me cry, too.  It's not just all funny hijinks.  This movie centers around relatable, individual relationships.  Parents and children.  Friends.  Husbands and wives.  That's what forms the core for the film, which is really what elevates it above the usual slash-and-bash sort of fantasy films, for me.

The whole film totally works for someone like me, who hasn't played D&D (though I do have a general sense of how it works).  But my kids, who do play D&D, love it on a whole different level.  They're always explaining to me how most of what's in the movie comes straight from the game, like owlbears, gelatinous cubes that dissolve people, a coin that lets you talk to dead people, and so many other things.  I love that this movie is able to stand on its own, work for dedicated fans of the game, and ALSO gently spoof fantasy movies, all at once!  Wow.

Oh, and one other thing I love?  The unabashedly platonic friendship between Edgin and Holga.  They are a wonderful team, but they've never been in love, nor do they fall in love during this adventure, nor are they likely to ever fall in love in the future, and they are both totally happy with that.

Is this movie family friendly?  Well, it has quite a bit of bad language.  There's a bit of rude humor (mostly from the reanimated corpses in one very funny section, which are a bit gross) and some very, very subtle innuendo here and there.  But there's no smut, there's only a hint of possible romance between two side characters, and the violence is all quite stylized and fantastical and unrealistic.  All three of my kids have seen this repeatedly, and they are ages 12+.  It's a great movie for teens and more mature tweens.

This has been my contribution to this weekend's Barbarians at the Gates blogathon co-hosted by myself here at Hamlette's Soliloquy and by Quiggy over at The Midnite Drive-In.  

Cover Reveal for My Book "A Noble Companion"

Earlier this year, I announced that I will be releasing an Ugly Duckling retelling called A Noble Companion as part of the Cornerstone Series from Beyond the Bookery. I can finally reveal its gorgeous cover!

A Noble Companion releases on November 12, and you can already pre-order the Kindle version on Amazon.

As you can see from the tagline here, this book involves a dragon!  The books in this series are all non-magical fantasy, which means the authors get to include fantasy elements such as creatures (like dragons, centaurs, unicorns, mermaids) or settings, but there will be no magic-users, such as witches or wizards or sorcerers.

Is this a major step out into the unknown for me personally?  In some ways, yes.  I tried writing a fantasy novel in my teens and gave it up because the worldbuilding was driving me crazy.  I've never tried to write anything fantasy-ish again... until now.  

But, being me, my book also has an American West flavor -- I've created a world based on Spanish California in the early 1800s (think of Zorro), but with talking animals and dragons.  

I have an inspiration board for this book on Pinterest -- you can check that out here!

Anyway!  I love my cover, and I'm having a great time writing this book.  If you'd like to see covers for more of the series, we are releasing four at a time every Monday for the whole month of June -- you can find the first eight here in my Instagram feed!

Oh, and if you think A Noble Companion sounds like a fun read, you can mark it as "want to read" here on Goodreads.

My Ten Favorite Fantasy Movies -- 2022 Update

I made my first list of ten favorite fantasy movies almost ten years ago -- in 2013!  It's high time for an updated version.

I'm defining fantasy here as involving magic or something supernatural somehow. So these aren't necessarily all swords-and-sorcerers stuff, but they do all involve non-real, magical things happening.

You'll notice that I'm counting the Lord of the Rings trilogy and the Hobbit trilogy as just one film each.  Otherwise they'd take over way too much of the list, and that would be silly.

1. The Lord of the Rings (2001-03) Nine companions from the four races of Middle Earth journey to Mount Doom destroy the One Ring and thus defeat evil Lord Sauron and his plans to take over the world.

2. The Princess Bride (1987) After Buttercup's (Robin Wright) true love Westley (Cary Elwes) is murdered by pirates, she agrees to marry Prince Humperdinck (Chris Sarandon), but gets kidnapped before the wedding. I'll never forget the first time I saw this movie -- it changed my ideas about humor and fantasy forever.

3. The Hobbit (2012-14) Fourteen companions from three races of Middle Earth journey to the Lonely Mountain to destroy the dragon Smaug and regain the dwarvish treasure there.

4. Willow (1988) Two reluctant companions (Warwick Davis, Val Kilmer) journey to protect a baby princess and thus defeat the evil queen and her plans to take over the world.

5. Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981) Dr. Indiana Jones (Harrison Ford), noted professor of archealogy, spends more time out chasing down antiquities that have mystical powers (or are worth lots of money) than he does teaching classes. Who can blame him?

6. Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl (2003) Captain Jack Sparrow (Johnny Depp) resorts to commandeering, raiding, pillaging, plundering, and otherwise pilfering his weasely black guts out, all to regain his beloved ship. More fun than a barrel of undead monkeys!

7. Cinderella (2015)  Ella (Lily James) treats her stepmother (Cate Blanchett), a prince (Richard Madden), and her fairy godmother (Helena Bonham Carter) with courage and kindness. It's a fabulously faithful retelling of the classic fairy tale, and it delights me.

8. The 13th Warrior (1999) An Arab exile (Antonio Banderas) joins a band of Norse warriors in their bold attempt to defeat the freaky bear-men-things that are attacking a bunch of small villages. Swords and danger and glory galore!

9. King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (2017) Arthur (Charlie Hunnam) grows up lean and mean on the Londinium streets, not learning he's the son of the late king (Eric Bana) until he's an adult. He reluctantly agrees to take on his uncle, Vortigen (Jude Law), who killed Arthur's father and usurped the throne. This one is a fun ride.

10. The Mummy (1999) A librarian (Rachel Weisz) and her brother (John Hannah) convince an adventurer (Brendan Fraser) to lead them on an archaeological expedition that quickly gets way more exciting than they ever expected. I like the sequel almost as well.

I've only reviewed a couple of these, sorry.  For those ones, I've linked my reviews to their titles here.

"A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935) -- Initial Thoughts

I have come to realize that I actually don't like A Midsummer Night's Dream very much.  The story and characters don't grab me, and I find several characters and much of the story preposterous, even grating.  However!  This filmed version is a fascinating watch, worth it for the special effects and the luminous Olivia de Havilland alone.

Because this is supposed to be High Art, or Important Theatre, or whatever, we have an Overture, and an Intermission.  They used Felix Mendelssohn's Overture and Incidental Music for A Midsummer Night's Dream, but with additional music by Erich Wolfgang Korngold (who wrote such wonderful scores as The Adventures of Robin Hood [1938]).

The opening credits alert us that this is going to be a magical, effects-laden film.  I have no idea how they did this swooshy effect to get the credits to swirl into being.  I tried to capture it with a gif:

It's so cool.  (I'm terrible at making gifs, btw -- I just film a little snippet with my phone and then use it to make the gif.  At least it gives you an idea of what I'm talking about.)

The costumes department must have come to blows over what era this is supposed to take place in, and settled the question by including ALL the eras.  We've got Elizabethan costumes.

We've got Ancient Roman costumes.

We've got medieval peasant costumes.  Oh well.  This is supposed to be a fantasy, so why not mix all the time periods together when it comes to clothes?  Certainly saves a lot of money on making everything match up -- just use whatever the wardrobe department already has and it'll be fine!  Save some money for the special effects!

The plot, in case you aren't aware, is this: Theseus (Ian Hunter) the Duke of Athens and Hippolyta (Verree Teasdale) the Queen of the Amazons are going to get married.  How should they celebrate their nuptials but by watching a play enacted by commoners with zero acting experience or talent?  Totally makes sense, right?

One plot is not enough for Shakespeare right now, so we've also got a young woman named Hermia (Olivia de Havilland) who loves and is beloved by a guy named Lysander (Dick Powell).  That's great, but Hermia's dad wants her to marry this other guy, Demetrius (Ross Alexander).  Hermia doesn't like Demetrius at all, especially because her friend Helena (Jean Muir) loves him.  So Hermia refuses to marry Demetrius, and her dad takes her to see Theseus and Hippolyta about it, to see if he can just have this wretched daughter killed for being so disagreeable.

As it turns out, two plots is not enough for Shakespeare today either, so we've also got King Oberon (Victor Jory) and Queen Titania (Anita Louise) battling each other over this random little kid Titania has adopted, but Oberon wants as his servant.

Now, mix those all together so that the fairies use magic to mess with the humans and each other, and everyone except Theseus and Hippolyta (who wisely remain in Athens and don't go wandering around any enchanted forests) are in for a very bad and confusing few days.  Which somehow is supposed to be funny.

Weirdly enough, Victor Jory makes a really cool King Oberon.  They give him this creepy crown, they superimpose spangly glimmers over all his shots, and he has such an unusual face anyway that it just works.

Anita Louise is a mystifyingly beautiful Queen Titania. She's ethereal without being twee, which is a hard line to walk.  I was surprised by how well I liked her.  Honestly most of my favorite parts of this film involved the fairies.

Oberon has these demonic bat-like fairies that follow him around, which get really creepy.

Titania has gauzy, glittery fairies that accompany her.  Their costumes are juuuuuuust this side of scandalous, but they're very pretty.  Unfortunately, whenever they appear, they tend to dance around for several minutes on end while the whole story stutters to a stop, which I could definitely have done without.  If you're a fan of glittery fairies dancing, though, you'll dig those parts.  These dances sometimes involved more very good special effects:

I mean, this movie is almost a hundred years old, and that's some pretty spectacular stuff even now.  Must've wowed the socks off audiences in its initial run.

Rounding out the fairies, we have Puck (Mickey Rooney).  Puck is always played exactly the same way in every single production of this story I've ever seen (granted, I've only seen 3, two live and this filmed version).  He's mischievous and squeaky and capers a lot and makes weird noises and is generally irksome.  Just once, I'd love to see him played as bored with the whole plot and totally done with Oberon's crap.  A sarcastic, annoyed Puck would be so amazing, I think.  As opposed to the rampant overacting every director seems to expect and encourage.

Speaking of overacting, oh my word.  James Cagney, what were you ON?  He never actually quite chewed on any scenery as Bottom, not even when he had a donkey head, but he might as well have.

I'm also not sure if he was supposed to break the fourth wall here and look directly at us, or if it was kind of accidental, or what, but it cracked me up.

The donkey head thing was another excellent effect, though:

Once Puck gave him that donkey head, I started to really like Bottom.  Cagney toned everything down and was really expressive and pitiable.  Very much liked him from then on.

His utter confusion over Titania falling madly in love with him was quite charming.

Of course, once Oberon gets what he wants, he reverses almost all the love charms.  Titania loves him again.

Lysander and Hermia get to get married after all.

Demetrius I guess gets to stay under a love spell forever so that Helena will be happy, and I don't know why Helena is totally cool with this sort of pretendy love, but I don't actually like either of them anyway, so whatever.

Theseus and Hippolyta have lots of fun laughing at the commonors' play-acting, which we have to sit through, and which I am just never amused by.  But it ends eventually.

Whew.

Olivia de Havilland was just 19 years old in this film, and she's wonderful to watch.  Sweet, happy, unhappy, confused, angry, fearful -- she gets the best range of emotions to run through of anyone in the film, and she nails all of them.  Which is why I decided to review this for the Olivia de Havilland Blogathon hosted by Charity at The Sacred in the Secular in honor of Ms. de Havilland's 104th birthday today!

Happy birthday, Ms. de Havilland!  It's so wonderful that we still have you with us.

Check out the blogathon for the list of other blog posts in her honor!