A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935 film)

• 1. The Hollywood Bowl Precedent

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  Max Reinhardt arrived in the United States as a refugee from Nazi Austria before directing his 1934 stage production at the Hollywood Bowl. The Los Angeles Times described that event as operating on the scale of a small military operation with over 400 artists involved. A gigantic stage replaced the band shell and was covered with green sod and oak trees shipped from Calabasas. Mickey Rooney played Puck while Olivia de Havilland appeared as Hermia in this live version. De Havilland had been an understudy for Gloria Stuart who dropped out due to illness before opening night. Warner Bros. later adapted this specific staging into their 1935 film version.

• 2. Contract Players In Shakespeare

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  James Cagney and Joe E. Brown were contract players at Warner Bros. who never performed Shakespeare before or after this project. Dick Powell was miscast as Lysander according to critics and he concurred with that verdict himself. Powell reportedly asked to be removed from the film during his Hollywood crooner phase but was denied. James Cagney received high acclaim for playing Bottom despite being too dynamic for the role. Mickey Rooney won praise for his performance as Puck even though some found him annoyingly cute. Many actors in the cast would not perform Shakespeare again in their careers.

• 3. Cellophane And Fairyland Effects

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  The production used 700,000 yards of cellophane to create the illusion of fairyland on screen. Hal Mohr decided to spray trees with orange paint to give them an eerie glow for the visual effect. Erich Wolfgang Korngold re-orchestrated Felix Mendelssohn's music using excerpts from symphonies and songs without words. Ballet sequences featuring fairies were choreographed by Bronislava Nijinska a veteran of the Ballets Russes. The film utilized visible wire suspensions for flying scenes which Andre Sennwald criticized as clever mechanical tricks. These technical choices created enchanting scenes that reviewers found convincing and compelling.

• 4. Box Office Failure And Bans

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  The film opened worldwide on the 9th of October 1935 in London New York Sydney and Vienna. It established a new record with 2,971 cancellations by cinemas exercising their right to pull out within a specified period. Booking agents failed to correctly identify the film before these cancellations occurred. The Ministry of Propaganda banned the movie in Nazi Germany due to Max Reinhardt's Jewish ancestry. Joseph Goebbels also banned all works by Felix Mendelssohn and Erich Wolfgang Korngold as degenerate music. The film received mixed reviews initially but was considered a financial failure at the box office.

• 5. Academy Awards And Write-In Campaign

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  Hal Mohr won the Academy Award for Best Cinematography thanks to a grass-roots write-in campaign. He decided to spray trees with orange paint to create the fairyland effect seen in the final cut. The Academy later declared it would no longer accept write-in votes after this specific incident. Ralph Dawson won the award for Best Film Editing while Henry Blanke produced the picture. The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Assistant Director but lost both categories. This victory marked a unique moment where audience pressure directly influenced the outcome of the awards ceremony.