I understand that Laurence Olivier called his adaptation of William Shakespeare's masterpiece more of a study of "Hamlet" than a direct adaptation. Nonetheless, the result was a marvelous film. At heart, the movie is a look at base impulses. In fact, I see a connection to another 1948 movie: "Treasure of the Sierra Madre". The latter focuses on the horrific actions to which greed drives people, much like how "Hamlet" looks at vindictiveness. Neither offers a rosy view of humanity.

The cold, Gothic sets frame the story perfectly. Elsinore's dreary look does as much to emphasize the characters' futile existence as any of the actors do. I should note that I've never seen a stage production of "Hamlet", so I'm not the best person to offer a comparison to a live version. I understand that Olivier cut much of the story to condense the movie so that he could emphasize the psychological aspect. Even so, he turned out a masterpiece, becoming the first person to direct himself to an acting Oscar, and giving us the first Best Picture winner not from the US. As for whether it was the year's best movie, I'd rank it as equal to "Treasure of the Sierra Madre", with both offering devastating focuses on the human condition. Definitely see it.

I think it's safe to say this is the best Hamlet so far. Not that I've seen them all but it's hard to imagine how anything in this production could be much improved upon.

The story, admittedly, is kind of dumb. Everybody since Samuel Johnson has been trying to figure out why Hamlet just didn't go ahead and kill Claudius. Ernest Jones psychoanalyzed Hamlet to uncover his hidden motives. But the answer is a simple one. If Hamlet had obeyed his father's ghost, marched down the steps, and killed Claudius on the spot, that would have been the end of the play, as well as the end of Act I or whatever it was. You might as well ask, when the Indians are chasing the stagecoach, why don't they just shoot the horses?

But the dialog never goes wrong, even though Olivier has deleted some unnecessary files and defragged the rest. As one lady said after viewing the film, "I don't know what's supposed to be so great about it. It's all made up out of old quotations." Some of the old quotations, usually corrupted, have entered the English lexicon without our awareness. "Every dog has his day." "Neither a borrower nor a lender be." "The play's the thing." "There's method in his madness." "To be or not to be." "Alas, poor Yorick." "In my mind's eye."

The production design in this black and white film is spare. Hardly any superfluous furniture. And it's obviously bound to the studio, and yet it's extremely effective. It has the kind of fog you never see in real life. The last scene, of Hamlet's body being born up the stairway to the tower, takes us on a leisurely tour of previous settings -- the bed chamber, the king's prayer room -- like Welles' camera in the climactic shot of Citizen Kane, moving over the expensive worthless material goods left over from Kane's life.

The performances and direction themselves would turn this into a memorable movie. First of all, what a cast! Christopher Lee (Dracula) as a spear carrier. Peter Cushing, another Hammer veteran, as a gay servant. Anthony Quayle. Stanley Holloway (Liza Doolittle's garbageman father in My Fair Lady) as a quick-witted gravedigger. And Olivier himself, brooding and animated by turns, and doing a splendid job of mock fencing, a truly physical presence.

It won several Academy Awards, including best picture and best actor. I wonder if it would win anything today. Awards seem to have become hardly more than glitzy settings in which Oscars are given to the biggest pictures that bring in the most money.

Well, no sense being too cynical. Let's just say that Olivier's Hamlet is worth about two or three dozen Pearl Harbors and Titanics. If you get a chance to see this, or rent it, don't let the fact that Shakespeare wrote it keep you from watching it. The old guy had a way with words. And, after all, you have incest, five murders and one suicide, and some sneakily bawdy lingo. ("Did you think I meant country matters"?)

Sir Laurence Olivier takes a stab at the brooding Danish prince in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. He's really too old to play the prince realistically. At most, he looks like the same age as his mother Gertrude. Even that is a great feat since Eileen Herlie is in actual life 11 years younger than Olivier. Olivier makes his version concentrate more on Hamlet's self doubt. "This is the tragedy of a man who could not make up his mind." He also plays up the Oedipus complex aspect of Hamlet. This may not be the definitive theatrical version of Hamlet. It is an interesting one made by a master. He has obviously thought it through and made the necessary cuts in his own ways. Olivier is obviously comfortable with the material. It is classically made with enough cinematic flourishes to keep it interesting.