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Comfortably the most visually imaginative and cinematically adventurous silent British Shakespeare film, Percy Stow's The Tempest (1908) takes a different approach from that of Dickson's 1899 film of King John, in that it attempts a complete précis of the entire play staged specifically for the cameras.
Explanatory intertitles link a series of mostly very brief scenes, shot both on location and in the studio, the latter being used to stage some fairly elaborate tableaux reminiscent of the French fantasy film pioneer Georges Méliès (the scene where Prospero summons up the tempest is particularly effective). Shakespeare's original text is missing, but it captures the spirit of the play most effectively.
Curiously, though, no-one seems to have built on its lead, as all surviving silent Shakespeare films have tended to be as stagebound as those made by Stow's predecessors - Frank Benson's Richard III (1911) being typical.
Michael Brooke *This film is included in the BFI DVD compilation 'Silent Shakespeare', with an optional commentary by Judith Buchanan.
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1. Prospero's arrival (2:02)
