Midsummer’s Dream

A Midsummer Night's Dream is a 1935 American romantic comedy film adaptation of the Shakespearean play of the same name. It is directed by Max Reinhardt and William Dieterle, produced by Warner Bros. Pictures, and stars James Cagney, Mickey Rooney, Olivia de Havilland (in her film debut), Jean Muir, Joe E. Brown, Dick Powell, Ross Alexander, Anita Louise, Victor Jory and Ian Hunter. The screenplay, written by Charles Kenyon and Mary C. McCall Jr., is adapted from Reinhardt's Hollywood Bowl production of the play from the previous year. Felix Mendelssohn's music was extensively used, as re-orchestrated by Erich Wolfgang Korngold. The ballet sequences featuring the fairies were choreographed by Ballets Russes veteran Bronislava Nijinska. The film opened on October 9, 1935. It initially received mixed reviews and was a financial failure, but retrospective reviews have been far more positive, and it is considered one of the best film versions of Shakespeare's play.