Then Petruchio started working at a shoe store...

So I've been thinking about Shakespeare lately, getting closer to that part of the 'History project.'  I've paid very little attention to him for most of my life.  I think I've seen movie versions of Hamlet and Romeo and Juliette, nothing else comes to mind.

But I did want to give something a try, just not sure what.  There must be some performance on Youtube, so it came down to deciding which play to pick and then looking up some version.  When I found The Taming of the Shrew, that was the obvious pick.  Looking it up on Youtube, there was a version of a movie made in 1929, the first 'talky' Shakespeare movie ever.  So in a couple ways, it was from the early days of modern civilization.

It also started Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, two of the biggest movie stars ever, both in their first 'talky' as well.  They had gotten married after Fairbanks convinced Pickford to get divorced from her first husband but by this point it looked like their marriage was getting ready to fall apart, although it would be several years before they finally got divorced.

So it's an interesting set-up for me to experience Shakespeare.  Unfortunately this version was clearly edited, it was barely over an hour long and doesn't have any subplots which, looking it up, the actual play does and the original movie probably did.  The sound editing is also bad in places.  There's also the difficulty of understanding what people actually talked like five hundred years ago, which often didn't match the captions which I did have some difficulty reading.  But much, I'd say at least 80% of the story on screen did get through, even for me.  I do admit enjoying it.

I don't have any familiarity with the actors.  Fairbanks had a bit part in Intolerance which I have seen once, a long time ago, but that was it for my previous experience with these founding movie royalty.  So they were effectively brand-new as far as I was concerned and I did like them.  It must be an interesting challenge for actors to do characters who are fundamentally dislikable and make them interesting to the audience and these two were great.

Petruchio and Katherine are very broad characters, there's little depth to either, but they're very entertaining.  The main problem is that the story came from an era where, at least for upper classes, women didn't pick their husbands, they were assigned to the best choice their parents could make.  That probably helped make marriages better than they are now but it's still not workable.  Both parties knew the point of life was to provide and protect and they were better off.  Otherwise men be ditching the bitches giving up the pussy.

Even so, the set-up really doesn't work.  There's no reason given Petruchio would want to marry anybody except for her father's money but if that was the case, he's already got a mansion with servants, just put her in her own house and never deal with her at all, problem solved.  And Katherine, well, she is a woman, that's basically all there is to say.  Why would she decide to go along with her father's wishes this time instead of getting away with complete insanity as she'd done her whole life?

But ok, we've all seen stories about couples that don't belong together but that's what the story requires.  This is obviously a fundamental version of that tale and it certainly works in its own right.  I looked up a few clips from other versions, I did not find the one from 1967 starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton but safe to say that's a good thing, but I did see one from a 1976 performance by people I've never heard of, the scene where Petruchio and Katherine first meet, and that's just delightful as well.

The entertainment value still stands out and I'm definitely glad I watched what I could.  They both stand out as characters that you don't care how they end up, you just want to watch them getting there.