Really? Could a filmed adaptation of Macbeth really be Orson Welles’ low point? I’m not trying to be unnecessarily harsh or anything, but this was quite possibly the least impressive Orson Welles movie I’ve ever seen.

Macbeth was shot in less than four weeks on papier mache sets, supposedly because Welles wanted to prove it could be done. And certainly it isn’t awful: Welles put together a very good cast, and there were a lot of standout moments in the movie (particularly Dan O’Herlihy’s Macduff). He also makes a few interesting changes to the script and how it plays out – I’m not going to spoil anything serious, but there is an entirely new character. Adding a new character to Shakespeare takes big brass ones, but then again: Orson Welles never shrank from that kind of a challenge.

But there are some negatives for me. First of all: it might seem shallow of me to say it, but the sets are really distractingly bad. And, quite frankly, it is unnecessary to have everyone speak in a Scottish accent when doing Macbeth – nobody was speaking in an Italian accent when he filmed Othello. And it’s particularly awful if not all of them are up to snuff – I’m looking at you, Orson. Still: it’s not bad by any stretch of the imagination, just simply “all right.” Which, when it comes to Orson Welles, is kind of a letdown. Worth watching once, I think, but no more.