Prince of Players

At Edwin's opening of Hamlet in London's Prince Charles Theatre there is a lady in a red hat.

She must have liked his performance, because she's in the audience for every subsequent performance.

Apparently, before the American Civil War, the denizens of small cities, towns and even mining camps in The Old West had a taste for the plays of William Shakespeare.When you see Raymond Massey as Junius Brutus Booth and Richard Burton as his son Edwin delivering the Bard's lines with their forceful personalities and mellifluous voices one can sense the appeal.

I've been known to say Richard Burton is the only person who can speak Shakespeare with the ability to get me to understand what he's saying. In Prince of Players, I got a real treat as he showed Hollywood audiences for the first time his talent in the difficult Shakespearean language.

Watched this again. The first time I saw it, I was a teenager.

Although many chart Richard Burton's film career from "Cleopatra," which ignited his love affair with Elizabeth Taylor in the early 1960's and made him an international star, Burton had already scored critically in several films during the 1950's, including "My Cousin Rachel" and "The Robe," both of which earned him Academy Award nominations. A trained Shakespearean stage actor, the Welsh thespian with the rich voice was an ideal choice to play Edwin Booth, son of an alcoholic actor who played King Lear to miners in the old west and brother to John Wilkes Booth, notorious assassin of Abraham Lincoln.

A forceful film that succeeds because we don't only hear famous Shakespearean lines whether they be from King Richard or Hamlet, but we get to know the people behind the characters.Ironically, Raymond Massey, so brilliant in "Abe Lincoln in Illinois," plays the Shakespearean actor Junius Booth, brilliant in his performances, but mentally unbalanced.

As a college student majoring in theatre history I spent a lot of time studying the Booth family, and among the many books i read was Eleanor Ruggles Prince of Players which was a favorite. What a disappointment it was when i saw this movie.

I've seen this movie on late-night TV and taped it from satellite. Burton is one of my favorite actors and is very under rated.

This film is now shown on FMC, Fox movie channel but it is a lost gem and with the interesting and seldom addressed story about Edwin Booth as well as the psychological events leading up to John Wilkes career path and eventual descent into a quest for empty fame. He believes can only be achieved through assassination of President Lincoln.

As a huge fan of Edwin Booth,and a Booth scholar, there were a lot of things this movie got right-I enjoyed the early mining camp scenes and the scenes with his father, and the relationship with Mary Devlin was sweet. The most glaring unfortunate decision was to make Booth a redhead- when he was referred to throughout his career as "raven-haired" and all photos show all the Booth children as dark haired.