Genre Guesstimation – Chimes At Midnight (1965)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by James of Blogging By Cinema Light and we will be reviewing our favorite Shakespeare in Film Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Dec by sending them to shakespeareanJim@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box! Great choice James!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Shakespeare in Film Movies.…

“There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old.” – Falstaff

Number of Times Seen – 1 (29 Dec 2019)

Brief Synopsis – Shakespearean character Falstaff’s connection to various other characters in different plays by the Bard is explored in order to try and give this character much more weight as being a very influential character in Shakespeare’s works.

My Take on it – I decided that in order to make my guest choices of the Genre for the Genre Grandeur series more personal (and expand my own personal horizons of these genres), I will take a recommendation from my guest for a film to watch for this Genre Guesstimation series.

This movie was James’s choice for me to watch.

This is a movie that I had never heard of and I wasn’t sure what to expect when James suggested it.

Being a fan of some of Orson Welles films, I had hopes that this would be enjoyable and I was correct.

The premise of this film is much better than its execution and gives us insight into the life of a secondary Shakespearean character who is influential to numerous primary characters.

The choice to tell the various stories from this perspective is a clever one and would work even better if it came across as being much more poignant than it ends up being.

We et to see how a minor character is affected by and affects the other characters around him along with the events of their lives.

Welles does a great job directing, writing and starring in this film and finds a way to bring the character of Falstaff to life.

The character is developed really well here and we get to see why he is such an important and integral character in Shakespearean literature and his paternal relationship with young Hal is shown really well especially wen looking at what kind of man and ruler he became when he became King Henry V.

Bottom Line – Great idea that work well but unfortunately isn’t as poignant as one might expect. Welles’ idea to focus on a secondary character that appears in numerous plays by Shakespeare is an interesting premise since it allows us to see how this one character is affects and is affected by the events of the more central characters around him. Welles does a fine job writing, directing and starring in this story and helps bring the character of Falstaff to life. He develops the character well to a point where we can see how integral he is to the events of the lives of the other characters who’s stories Shakespeare chose to tell. Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Despite portraying Falstaff as a grossly obese man, Orson Welles actually had to diet to slim down for the role. (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Not quite, Great idea that works very well but still isn’t as powerful as one would hope especially given the fact that the story was conceived and realized by Welles.

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)