As You Like It (1936) review: Sweaty Laurence Olivier and fake sheep

If you have ninety minutes to spare and want to see a very young, incredibly sweaty Laurence Olivier climb some fake trees, then yes, As You Like It is worth your time. Shakespeare purists will probably absolutely hate this version, mostly because of Elisabeth Bergner's wild accent, but fans of weird vintage theater vibes will have a blast. 🎭

It's basically a filmed play, but they tried to make it look like "real" nature inside a giant, stuffy studio. The results are... odd, to say the least.

First off, Elisabeth Bergner plays Rosalind. She was married to the director, which explains a lot because her performance is all over the place.

She has this incredibly thick Austrian accent that makes Shakespeare’s verse sound like a completely different language. Sometimes she giggles for no reason at all, right in the middle of a serious monologue.

It’s charming in a bizarre way, but it also completely derails the rhythm of the play. You can almost see the other actors waiting for her to finish laughing so they can say their lines.

Then there is Laurence Olivier as Orlando. He is so young here, and he has this massive, untamed energy like a golden retriever puppy that drank too much coffee. 🐶

He spends half the movie looking intensely at things just off-camera. In the wrestling scene early on, he looks genuinely worried he might accidentally kill the other guy.

Speaking of that wrestling match, it goes on for way too long. The crowd of extras looks completely bored, like they were promised lunch three hours ago and are just waiting to go home.

I swear one guy in the back is actually yawning while Olivier is fighting for his life. It reminds me of the sleepy crowd scenes in Brother Alfred, where everyone just looks like they walked into the wrong room.

Once the movie moves to the Forest of Arden, things get even weirder. The set designers clearly just dumped a truckload of dirt and some fake moss onto a soundstage and called it a day.

There are real sheep walking around, though. They look extremely confused by the studio lights.

Honestly, watching these poor sheep try to navigate the fake forest is more entertaining than some of the romance. It’s almost like a documentary about confused farm animals, not unlike the vibe in Across the World with Mr. and Mrs. Martin Johnson, except with less lions and more English theater actors shouting at trees.

There is a scene where Orlando hangs his love poems on the branches. Olivier slap-patches these papers onto the bark so hard I thought the tree trunk was going to snap in half.

The camera just lingers on his face while he does this, and it feels like the scene lasts a solid minute longer than it needs to. It’s those little, unedited pauses that make these 1930s movies so fascinating to watch today.

The whole disguise plot—where Rosalind dresses up as a boy named Ganymede—is hilarious because Bergner does not look like a boy at all. She wears this little tunic that looks like a fancy nightgown, and everyone just goes along with it.

Orlando is supposed to be head over heels, but he acts like he’s talking to a slightly strange kid brother. It’s beautiful nonsense.

The music is also incredibly loud. It swells up during the most random moments, totally drowning out the dialogue so you have to squint to hear what they are saying.

But despite all the clunky parts, there’s a real sweetness to it. It doesn’t feel cynical or over-processed like modern stuff.

It’s just a bunch of theater people in 1936 having a weird weekend in a fake forest. And sometimes, that is exactly what you want to watch. 🌳