There have been numerous on screen adaptations of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The best-known cinematic adaptations are Sam Taylor's 1929 The Taming of the Shrew and Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 The Taming of the Shrew, both of which starred the most famous celebrity couples of their era; Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in 1929 and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in 1967. On television, perhaps the most significant adaptation is the 1980 BBC Television Shakespeare version, directed by Jonathan Miller and starring John Cleese and Sarah Badel.
The play has also been reworked numerous times for both cinema and television. Some of the better known adaptations include Kiss Me Kate, a 1953 filmic adaptation of Cole Porter's 1948 musical based on the play, McLintock! (1963), The Taming of the Scoundrel (1980), 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), Deliver Us from Eva (2003) and Isi Life Mein...! (2010).
Film
Silent era
The earliest cinematic adaptation of the play is D.W. Griffith's eleven-minute The Taming of the Shrew, made for Biograph in 1908, starring Florence Lawrence as Katherina and Arthur V. Johnson as Petruchio. The blurb for the film stated "if we could see ourselves as others see us what models we would become." Also released in Italy in 1908 was the seven-minute La bisbetica domata, directed by Azeglio Pineschi and Lamberto Pineschi. There is no known cast list for this film. Unlike all other silent adaptations, this version retains the Katherina/Bianca sibling rivalry. In 1911, F.R. Benson directed a twelve-minute silent filmed extract from his own Shakespeare Memorial Theatre production, starring himself and his wife, Constance Benson. The film presented a heavily truncated pantomime version of the story, with pieces of Shakespeare's original text used as intertitles throughout. It is now believed lost, although several stills survive in the library archives of the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust. Also released in France in 1911 was La mégère apprivoisée, directed by Henri Desfontaines and starring Madeleine Barjac and Romauld Joubé. It is thought to be the first version to show scenes which take place off-stage in the play; in this case, the wedding and the journey to Petruchio's house. A 1913 Italian version, the twenty-two-minute La bisbetica domata, was directed by Arrigo Frusta and starred Gigetta Morano and Eleuterio Rodolfi. This version also shows scenes not in the play. Another English adaptation was released in 1915, directed by and starring Arthur Backner. This version is also lost. Intended more as a showcase for a new type of sound system than an adaptation of the play, the film consisted entirely of the scene where Petruchio and Katherina first meet. Shot using a process known as Voxograph, the actors spoke the complete text during filming, and when the film was played at the theatre, "the same actors, one at each side of the screen but unseen, repeated the words in what was supposed to be synchronisation. It was expected that the operator, after rehearsal, would be able to project the film so that picture and voice would jibe." The earliest surviving British filmic adaptation is Edwin J. Collins' 1923 version, adapted by Eliot Stannard, and starring Dacia Deane and Lauderdale Maitland. One of a series of forty-minute adaptations of classic texts released under the Gems of Literature banner, only the second half of the film survives, and the final scene is incomplete as a result of print damage. This version very much adopts Petruchio's perspective, and one of the intertitles reads "by noon the next day, though famished and weary for want of food and rest, the Shrew deep in her heart admired the man whose temper is greater than her own."
Sam Taylor (1929)
The first sound adaptation of the play was in 1929; Sam Taylor's The Taming of the Shrew, starring Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks (the first sound adaptation of any Shakespeare play). This version was simultaneously shot as a silent film, and, depending on whether a given theatre was equipped to screen sound films, was released both as a "talkie" and a silent. Using only 500 lines from the original play, and a few lines from David Garrick's 1754 adaptation of Shrew, Catharine and Petruchio, the film is primarily known for how Pickford delivers Katherina's last speech. As she moves through the litany of reasons why a woman should obey her husband, she winks toward Bianca (Dorothy Jordan), unseen by Petruchio. Bianca smiles in silent communication with Katherina, thus acknowledging that Katherina has not been tamed at all. The film opens with a Punch and Judy puppet show which several critics have argued performs a similar function to the Christopher Sly Induction in the original play, but also works to instill a sense of false anticipation in the audience; the puppet show ends with Judy sinking lovingly into Punch's arms after he beats her. In the film, Katherina never sinks into Petruchio's arms. Indeed, Pickford's Katherina is much more resistant than in many stage versions; there is an extended scene of her wrecking Baptista's home, she only agrees to marry Petruchio when he stands on her foot and her scream is taken by the priest as consent, when she falls in the mud on the way to Petruchio's house, he offers to help but she refuses, she rejects meat at the dinner table rather than being tempted by it. Most significantly, when Petruchio outlines his plan to tame her "with kindness" (4.1.195), which is usually a soliloquy, Katherina hears him. She then proceeds to 'out-tame' him; when he messes up the bedclothes, she overturns the entire mattress, sparking a game of one-upmanship which ends when she flings a stool at him and knocks him out. The conversation about the sun and moon, so often seen as a pivotal turning point in the taming is then delivered with a befuddled Petruchio apparently genuinely unsure whether he is looking at the sun or the moon, and a worried Katherina trying to placate him. This is immediately followed by her 'submission' speech, and her wink. Elizabeth Schafer believes this is a Katherina that has not been tamed; "unlike Shakespeare's Katherina, Pickford's Katherina knows what Petruchio is trying to do in taming her and she responds to this tactically and successfully. Her surpassing of Petruchio's outrageous behaviour leaves him nonplussed and concussed." However, Pickford herself was unhappy with the film, and with how Taylor had directed her. In her autobiography, she wrote she wanted to play Katherina as a ferocious woman, but Taylor told her "We don't want any of that heavy stage drama; we want the old Pickford tricks." Pickford said of her performance, "Instead of being a forceful tiger-cat, I was a spitting little kitten."
Franco Zeffirelli (1967)
The next cinematic adaptation was Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 The Taming of the Shrew, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. This version omits the Induction; however, some critics have commented that the title sequence offers a modern 'replacement' for the Induction. The film begins with Lucentio (Michael York) and Tranio (Alfred Lynch) arriving in Padua in the middle of what appears to be a funeral. However, after a moment, the funeral suddenly transforms into a colourful party which moves from the church through the streets as the credits for the film play. Graham Holderness argues of this scene,
Sylvan Barnet believes that in this adaptation, "Kate and Petruchio fall in love almost as soon as they see each other." Barbara Hodgdon has also pointed out that several times, Katherina can be seen gazing longingly at Petruchio. Critics have also noted that Katherina twice consciously decides to go along with Petruchio. The first moment is behind the stained glass window when she silently decides to marry him. The second is when she follows him after he leaves her at the gates of Padua. In this version, Katherina delivers her final speech seemingly without irony. Zeffirelli and Burton both wanted Elizabeth Taylor to deliver the speech ironically, a la Mary Pickford, but Taylor felt it would be better to speak seriously, and then undermine that seriousness by leaving the banquet without Petruchio, thus subverting his apparent authority over her. However, Elizabeth Schafer calls the film "intensely conservative," citing the controversial advertising blurb; "A motion picture for every man who ever gave the back of his hand to his beloved...and for every woman who deserved it. Which takes in a lot of people! Russell Jackson argues the film "offers a 1960s liberation more likely to appeal to Lawrentians than present-day feminists." However, Schafer does go on to acknowledge that "because of the sheer power of Taylor's presence, Katherina occupies a far more memorable filmic space than the dramatic space she has in the original play.For more information on this production, see and
Other releases In 1961, Sergei Kolosov directed a black and white theatrical adaptation for Mosfilm, starring Lyudmila Kasatkina and Andrei Alekseyevich Popov. In 1983, John Allison directed a straight-to-video production played out on a bare Elizabethan stage modeled after the Globe Theatre. The film was part of a series called Shakespeare in Performance, which produced adaptations using relatively complete texts intended for use as educational tools in schools, with the primary aim being to show how the plays would have looked when originally performed. The production starred Karen Austin and Franklyn Seales.
Adaptations Other film versions (which are loose adaptations as opposed to straight translations from stage to screen) include: Taming Mrs. Shrew (1912); director and cast unknown; sets the play in a contemporary milieu as a husband tries to tame his nagging wife. The Taming of the Shrewd (1912); directed by Harry A. Pollard, starring Norma Shearer and Reginald Denny; again sets the play in a contemporary milieu as a husband attempts to curtail his wife's attendance of local suffragette meetings by pretending to have an affair. The Iron Strain (1915); written by C. Gardner Sullivan, directed by Reginald Barker, starring Enid Markey and Dustin Farnum; relocates the story to modern-day New York and Alaska as a boorish prospector attempts to tame a beautiful but spoiled socialite. Released in the UK in 1917 under the title The Modern Taming of the Shrew. Impossible Catherine (1919); written by Frank S. Beresford, directed by John B. O'Brien, starring Virginia Pearson and William B. Davidson; relocates the story to modern-day Yale University where a literature student is inspired by his reading of the play to tame the feminist daughter of a wealthy banker. Daring Youth (1924); written by Dorothy Farnum, directed by William Beaudine, starring Bebe Daniels and Norman Kerry; when a soon to be married woman sees her unhappily married mother successfully exert her independence from her husband, the young woman decides to follow suit. Much to her annoyance, her husband is happy to go along with the idea. The Framing of the Shrew (1929); written by Octavus Roy Cohen, directed by Arvid E. Gillstrom, starring Evelyn Preer and Edward Thompson; when a man becomes exasperated with his domineering wife, he decides to tame her by initiating divorce proceedings and pretending he has a girlfriend.