The Viennese impresario Max Reinhardt was one of the greatest figures of the German-language theater at the turn of the century and beyond. He was so well known that he was invited to stage his opulent production of A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM in the States. The highly successful Hollywood Bowl engagement of the play caught the eye of Warner Brothers’ studio heads and they gave Reinhardt a chance to translate it to the screen with all the star power they could muster. Thus we have the unusual spectacle of a lavish, creatively mounted production of the Bard’s immeasurably intricate masque-play starring the likes of James Cagney, Mickey Rooney and hoofer Dick Powell, as well as the serenely beautiful Olivia de Havilland. It’s the ultimate old-Hollywood treatment of Shakespeare.