Twelve Plus Seven

[setsuled]

Watch on YouTube

I dozed a bit while watching the 1970 version of Twelfth Night with Alec Guinness and Ralph Richardson, though the twelfth day of Christmas was last week. It's on YouTube now, on the The Shakespeare Network, embedded above. I've already written about it once, back in 2018, when I watched it on Amazon Prime where it was labelled as a 1969 production. I wonder who's right.

Guinness is so good as the hypocrite Puritan. It's a shame he's not so widely remembered for his comedic talent. It's hard to imagine anyone playing Sir Toby better than Ralph Richardson, either, the kind of sadistic Falstaff. As I said in my 2018 review, Malvolio, Guinness' character, is an ass but he doesn't deserve the treatment Sir Toby dishes out for him. It kind of reminds me of horror movie morality in which someone receives punishment disproportionate to their sin, like the girl who sleeps around and gets murdered for it. I wonder if someone could reinterpret Twelfth Night as a horror movie. Imagine Malvolio's love for Olivia treated as something sad and tender while Sir Toby and his cohorts are the vicious yokels from The Hills Have Eyes or Texas Chainsaw Massacre. I'd be interested in seeing such an interpretation. In any case, I think it's clear why Sir Toby never inspired the affection Falstaff received.

The 4k version of this Twelfth Night production also looks much better than the one on Amazon Prime did. Why is free stuff so often superior these days?