MACBETH (1948)

Something wicked this way comes in Orson Welles’s cinematic retelling of William Shakespeare’s immortal classic. The larger-than-life Welles (Citizen Kane, The Lady from Shanghai, Othello, Touch of Evil) adapts, produces, directs and stars as the titular Scottish lord who is tragically undone by his own vaulting ambition. Welles’s noir-tinged interpretation bubbles over with supernatural prophecy and murderous intrigue, effectively mixing the use of shadow and oblique camera angles (courtesy of cinematographer John L. Russell, Psycho) to achieve an ominous sense of a land in peril. Co-starring Dan O’Herlihy (Robinson Crusoe), Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes), Alan Napier (TV’s Batman) and Jeanette Nolan (The Big Heat) in her stunning film debut as Lady Macbeth, this iconic Mercury Production of The Scottish Play is an altogether stark and singular vision. This 2-disc Special Edition includes both the original 1948 119-minute cut, replete with overture/exit music and affected Highland burrs, and the 1950 pared-down 85-minute re-release which excised most of the accented dialogue.