Oh’phelia: A Cartoon Burlesque is a strangely charmless comedic version of Hamlet, directed and written by the humourist and animator Anson Dyer.
I think pretty much every joke falls flat here, not helped by the stilted pace of the animation. As with all things like this, maybe it’s just because I’m too far removed from the time to actually get any of them. But then again, when you watch some of his other cartoons, such as the cutting political satire shown off in Peter’s Picture Poems (1917), maybe Anson Dyer was just a tediously unfunny hack.
There is an excellent bit where a crow graphically eats a snail, though, and I did like this caption, too, so it’s not all awful.
The dog’s pretty cute too.
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Notes
1. I watched this on the free section of the BFI’s website, here: Oh’phelia: A Cartoon Burlesque
2. There are quite a few other things of his there as well.
3. Including another Shakespeare one, which I’ll presumably watch next year some time. And then immediately regret.
4. Also this has a moon with a face on it. I’m quite scared of moons with faces on them, and always will be.
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Film Information
Title: Oh’phelia: A Cartoon Burlesque
Director: Anson Dyer
Year: 1919
Runtime: 10 minutes
Title: Peter’s Picture Poems
Director: Anson Dyer
Year: 1917
Runtime: 3m minutes