Hamlet

The queen of Denmark raises her daughter as a boy because the crown staying in the family depends on it, and so Hamlet lives an entire life as a prince. The change is not the film’s own invention; it comes from the argument in Edward P. Vining’s 1881 book The Mystery of Hamlet. Asta Nielsen had founded her own production company in 1920 and made this her signature project, and she plays Hamlet herself. Erwin Gepard wrote it, Svend Gade and Heinz Schall directed. Women had long taken the part of Hamlet on stage, but this is the first production to build the character as a woman from the start. The summary in the record carries a mathematical sign in place of an apostrophe, which leaves Shakespeare’s name looking broken.