Merchant of Venice [VHS] [1974]

With an excellent cast, and my favourite quote in all shakespeare..'the fool multitude who judge by show...' delivered by a superb actor and totally cut out of the pacino version, an unforgivable error, and a pasty vague version with very little memorable characters or scenes to boot, this version just flies above it in all regards, and worth buying a video recorder for alone.How dare pacino dumb down this masterpiece!

The acting, in this production of "The Merchant of Venice", is really first class.
Gratiano (MICHAEL JAYSTON)is the stirdy, merry, spontaneous, cheeky and a bit scatterbrained young man that he must be.
JOAN PLOWRIGHT is a charming, touching and subtle Portia.She misses no shade of feeling of the character she embodies. I'm particularly fond of her interpretation of the trial scene, where Portia pretends to be young judge Balthazar. She speaks with the authority and self-control of her so-called office, but manage to let us perceive her emotions and her efforts to suppress it.
The part of Antonio is performed by ANTONY NICHOLLS, a nice actor older than JEREMY BRETT (Bassanio), and so, Antonio looks like a loving father, entirely devoted to his beloved son.
Bassanio is embodied by dear JEREMY BRETT (Sherlock Holmes in the outstanding Granada series of the same name). In Shakespeare's play, there are not plenty of explanations about Bassanio, but we can deduce...He is loved by good and melancholy Antonio and therefore must have all the qualities of a gentleman, and be young, and full of life and cheerfulness.He is loved by Portia, and so must be extremely attractive. JEREMY BRETT is all that: gentleman like, bursting with vitality, devilishly attractive. Had he been given a deeper character to embody, he would have shown the full depth of his insight, but he was not the age and had not the look to play Shylock...
Shylock is played by the great LAURENCE OLIVIER who gives a fantastic interpretation of the part.He first appears as a finicky and slightly ridiculous old man who makes us smile. And then, when Shylock's daughter runs away, Olivier expresses Shylock's pain with such a tremendous strength that he makes us understand far better the character, whose wickedness comes from his violent and hidden sufferings.How he cries in front of his deceased wife's portrait, because his daughter has paid unnecessary triffles with the ring her mother gave his father long ago! I must confess I was moved.Then, Shylock's pain turns into icy rage.Beautiful!
But there are also very amusing moments in the play. The Prince of Aragon is played as a decrepit and doddering old man; the actor's performance is excellent,he is quite hilarious. And it's only one example among many others.
I have yet two little reservations to express:
I wonder why the director decided to dress the actors with costumes from the 19° century. They behave, think and speack as men and women of the 16° century, so they should wear costumes of the same era.
The DVD has very little bonus footage: only a photo gallery and it does not provide us with subtitles. What are the hearing impaired people supposed to do? And what of the foreigners like me? We need english subtitles, and more so when the characters speak old english! I had the printed play with me, but some bits of the play have been cut out (for instance the hilarious conversation between Lancelot Gobbo and old Gobbo)and some others have been shifted, so I was sometimes lost and had to press the "still" button...