The Tragedy of Richard III (1983)

the audience applauded

everything you have heard about this movie is true.

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

As a fan of Richard III, I've seen every version produced. I still do not understand why anyone likes Laurence Olivier's version with its grim, heavy-handed performance. Ron Cook is the perfect Richard, upbeat and energetic, sly and humorous, delighting in his mission until the weight of his crimes begin to trouble his conscience. Jane Powell's direction, as she did with Henry VI parts I, II and III (my favorite of the series), keeps the action moving and the characters in sharp focus, especially King Edward, whose final speech is one you'll always remember. This is the Richard that Shakespeare wanted his audience to see, a man of a courage who loses control of his ambition.

Unlike some of the earlier BBC plays in this tetralogy, this version of Richard III is reasonably well done and fairly watchable, though it suffers from some of the usual BBC efforts at trendiness. The last scene, which some of the favorable reviewers seemed to like, has nothing to do with Shakespeare, and is a crude attempt to undo Shakespeare's intended effect with his genuine last scene. But most of the text is present, unlike Olivier's or McKellen's versions, though this version is both less competent and less enjoyable than either. Most of the actors do reasonably well, and Ron Cook has grown in the role. Julia Foster is less dreadful as Queen Margaret here than in the earlier plays, but mercifully doesn't have many scenes, and doesn't manage to ruin most of the ones she does have. Peter Benson finally gets it right, and plays Henry VI considerably better dead than alive. Most of the minor actors are very good, though the role-doubling can be distracting. Until Mark Wing-Davey speaks, for instance, it was not at all clear to me that he was portraying a new character; but his accent eventually made that sufficiently clear.

I recently purchased the 4 DVD versions of the BBC TV 1980's 'Henry VI/Richard III' series and they have had me spellbound.I agree withe the general view of other commentators that the excision of the British 'hammy' style does nothing but enhance the powerful sweep of this epic.In the final play Ron Cook's deliberately paced and under-stated (by comparison with, say, Olivier) performance renders a powerful image of the 'toad'.I was especially struck by the scene with the 3 women characters where they debate the evils wrought by their various male relatives on them and their offspring.The last few scenes covering the night before the battle of Bosworth where the stream of ghosts taunting Richard then support Richmond, highlights what a great piece of pro-Tudor propaganda this play is.I know that my comments are really about the original Shakespeare play but this production made it live for me.The final scene with Margaret cackling on top of the heap of dead is a masterstroke!

I'm fairly sure that many educated and interested-in-film folk have seen the superb and terrifying McKellen version, but sadly, I'd bet hardly anyone remembers this version, which in the original was the capstone of the cycle of plays that begins with Richard II and continues through the various Henry plays (six of 'em). The series was cast as a whole, and the list of actors is a who's-who of British acting skill, culminating in this horrorshow of a play. From the opening moments, when the camera pulls back from the last frame of Henry VI, Part III to reveal a small blackboard, onto which a disembodied hand scrawls Richard III in chalk, to the final frame, where Margaret sits, cackling hysterically atop a pile of bodies (all the characters killed in the preceding eight plays), this version assaults you and tests your ability to withstand true, and intentional villainy, as personified in the demonic Richard. See this version...plague the BBC with letters asking for it to be reissued...write to the actors and shower them with adulation..whatever it takes to return this play to the public eye, where it richardly belongs. Cheers!