Laurence Olivier’s ‘Macbeth’ Screenplays Unearthed A British professor has stumbled across Laurence Olivier’s screenplays for a 1950s movie version of Macbeth which were thought to have been lost. The University of Exeter’s Jennifer Barnes was researching Olivier’s film version of Richard III at the British Library’s Laurence Olivier Archive when she came across references to Macbeth scripts. Olivier had tried to mount the filmed version of Shakespeare’s play, but it was shelved due to financing problems. He would and wife Vivien Leigh would have played not only Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, but also two of the three witches, the screenplays reveal. Olivier also planned to cut out the “Is this a dagger I see before me?” line, The Guardian reports. While he was still alive, Olivier contended there were no surviving copies of his screenplay, but Barnes said “I was going through the catalog...
- 1/31/2013
- by THE DEADLINE TEAM
- Deadline TV
English lecturer stumbles across 'nonexistent' screenplay in British Library for film scuppered by financial problems
For more than 50 years it has been one of the great questions of British cinema: what would the celebrated actor and director Laurence Olivier have done with Shakespeare's Macbeth if he had managed to make a big-screen version?
Olivier, who was bitterly disappointed when his attempt to film the play was scuppered by financial problems, tried to shroud the project in mystery during his lifetime, saying there were no surviving copies of his screenplay and teasing fans and critics that nobody would ever have any idea how his version would have compared with those of Orson Welles or Roman Polanski.
But now an academic searching for something quite different has stumbled upon 13 versions of the lost screenplay among papers and discovered that Olivier had some surprises in store.
For example, Olivier and his then wife...
For more than 50 years it has been one of the great questions of British cinema: what would the celebrated actor and director Laurence Olivier have done with Shakespeare's Macbeth if he had managed to make a big-screen version?
Olivier, who was bitterly disappointed when his attempt to film the play was scuppered by financial problems, tried to shroud the project in mystery during his lifetime, saying there were no surviving copies of his screenplay and teasing fans and critics that nobody would ever have any idea how his version would have compared with those of Orson Welles or Roman Polanski.
But now an academic searching for something quite different has stumbled upon 13 versions of the lost screenplay among papers and discovered that Olivier had some surprises in store.
For example, Olivier and his then wife...
- 1/26/2013
- by Steven Morris
- The Guardian - Film News
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