A Midsummer Night's Dream

Original title: Sen noci svatojánské

1959
1h 16m

IMDb RATING

YOUR RATING

Stop Motion Animation Animation Comedy Fantasy Romance

The first puppet kinescope in the world. It is based on the famous poetic comedy by William Shakespeare. Three worlds meet in this story: the noble world of three Athens couples, a common po... Read allThe first puppet kinescope in the world. It is based on the famous poetic comedy by William Shakespeare. Three worlds meet in this story: the noble world of three Athens couples, a common popular world of tradesmen amateur theatre and a fairy-tale happiness of magic creatures as ... Read allThe first puppet kinescope in the world. It is based on the famous poetic comedy by William Shakespeare. Three worlds meet in this story: the noble world of three Athens couples, a common popular world of tradesmen amateur theatre and a fairy-tale happiness of magic creatures as elves and nymphs. The film is considered the most remarkable Jirí Trnka's work and a miles... Read all

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.1/10

491

YOUR RATING

See production info at IMDbPro

Awards
- 1 win & 1 nomination

Photos7

Top cast16

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Joss Ackland

Quince
(voice)

Ann Bell

Hermia
(voice)

Richard Burton

Narrator

Tom Criddle

Lysander
(voice)

Jean Desailly

Récitant
(voice)
…

Laura Graham

Hippolyta
(voice)

Jack Gwillim

Oberon
(voice)

Barbara Jefford

Titania
(voice)

Barbara Leigh-Hunt

Helena
(voice)

Hugh Manning

Theseus
(voice)

Alec McCowen

Bottom
(voice)

Michael Meacham

Demetrius
(voice)

Stephen Moore

Flute
(voice)

Rudolf Pellar

Narrator (original Czech version)
(as R. Pellar)

Roger Shepherd

Puck
(voice)

John Warner

Egeus
(voice)

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Featured review

7/10

Dream a little harder...

Jiri Trnka - master Czech animator, illustrator, and sculptor. I sing his praises constantly, but this time I wasn't quite as enamored by the animation. While "A Midsummer Night's Dream" is definitely worth seeing, (so colorful) I feel that much less of the camera work and animation was done by Trnka himself.

Animating a human puppet convincingly was always something that Trnka managed to do, but the animation within "A Midsummer Night's Dream" feels a little rough around the edges when compared to the previous work within "Old Czech Legends" (which is still my favorite piece, simply due to the quality of the work, and the odd content).

So in short, don't pass this one up, but you might be slightly disappointed if you're an uber animation nerd. I have only see this work without English captions/voices.