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Alexander A. Pogrebinsky writes:

There is barely any information available about the film "Richard Burton's Hamlet" — many prominent reviewers such as Roger Ebert, Leonard Maltin, and Keal do not mention anything about it in their 1964 reviews. The only information that I could find about the film came from the two biographies that I got hold of on Richard Burton. What I understand is that the production of Hamlet, which was the longest in Broadway history, was directed by John Gielgud and perhaps filmed during the actual play. I also understand that Burton didn't like it.

Burton did the play Hamlet before in the Old Vic in 1953 (a year after that Kozintsev premiered his Hamlet in the Soviet Union, and also made the famous film in 1964).

With John Gielgud in New York.

Richard's brother Graham Jenkins wrote of Hamlet in 1964 in the biography Richard Burton, My Brother:

. . . But Gielgud himself did not seem to anticipate any difficulty — even though Rich's earlier version of Hamlet had wounded his poetical sensitivity. He told Cohen he had a notion to stage Hamlet in modern dress. Would Rich go along with that? Since my brother's concept of heaven was never again to be asked to put on costume, his acceptance was immediate. The show was on the road.

And what a show! Even before casting, media interest was vigorous, bordering on the frantic.

. . . There was a feeling among the critics that director and star were somehow at odds with each other, the Burton energy and passion trying to escape from the restraints of Gielgud's agonizing, introspective version of Hamlet — and not quite making it. There is no doubt they trouble in agreeing an interpretation of Hamlet. Though he took guidance from the director when it suited him, Rich was determined to go his own way. Sadly it was in a direction where Gielgud was unable to help him. The result was an undisciplined Hamlet, who, at times, had the rest of the cast running round in circles.

The other curiosity of the production was the use of modern dress. It was an interesting if not entirely original idea to give the play a contemporary feel but Gielgud decided he could best do this by having his actors appear in rehearsal clothes. He told everyone to go out shopping for the sort of casual clothes they would wear for a cold day in Toronto or New York. Naturally, when they reappeared they looked ready not so much for rehearsal (a comfortable, rather shabby look) as for a smart weekend in the country. A fancy dress weekend, perhaps, what with those swords and scabbards and long flowing capes.

The audience was not quite sure how to take it and those who were unfamiliar with Hamlet were thoroughly confused when actors doubled on some parts. But then, as David Dillon Evans who played Osric and Reynaldo was heard to point out, Gielgud assumed that everybody knew Hamlet, line by line.

Hollis Alpert wrote:

. . . On a cold day, gray day in late August, when Richard and John Gielgud were between takes, Gielgud asked Richard if he planned to do anything for the Shakespeare Quattrocentennial in 1964. Casually Richard said: "I'll do Hamlet if you'll direct it."

"Where?" Gielgud asked.

"New York."

"Very well," Gielgud said. "Who shall produce?"

"Alexander Cohen," Richard said.

"Good." Said Gielgud.

. . . Once an agreement was reached, discussions went on between Richard and Gielgud about the form the play would take. Both preferred not doing a traditional mounting. Richard did not want to play Hamlet in doublet and hose. Gielgud suggested performing the play as though it was a final run-through, out of costume, before the opening night. Actors could wear whatever rehearsal clothes they felt comfortable in. Richard made no objection; his concern was making the play as immediately understandable as possible.

Wikipedia writes:

Richard Burton’s Hamlet is a 1964 filmed record of the Broadway production of William Shakespeare's tragedy that played from April 9 through August 8 of that year at the Lunt-Fontanne Theatre. It is a literal filmed record of the stage production in which three performances were recorded by cameras from June 30 through July 1^[1] using a process called Electronovision ^[2] and then edited into a single film.

New York Times writes:

The first and most important thing to be said about the Hamlet that opened last night at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater is that it is Shakespeare, not a self-indulgent holiday for a star.

Richard Burton dominates the drama, as Hamlet should. For his is a performance of electrical power and sweeping virility. But it does not burst the bounds of the framework set for it by John Gielgud's staging. It is not so much larger than life that it overwhelms the rest of the company. Nor does it demand attention so fiercely for itself that the shape and poetry of the play are lost to the audience.

Mr. Gielgud has pitched the performance to match Mr. Burton's range and intensity. The company for the most part has been well-chosen, though it is not and cannot be expected everywhere to approach the crispness of the Hamlet's attack, the scope of his voice, the peaks of his fury and remorse.

Mr. Gielgud's own Hamlet years ago was much different-more sinuous and refined. It is his merit that he has found a new way to look at the play to be in keeping with Mr. Burton's style and view of the role. This is no melancholy Hamlet, no psychoanalytical or Oedipal Hamlet, no effete or lack-luster Hamlet.

It is designed to look like a final runthrough. The stage is bare, its brick walls and columns visible. A platform and a series of steps plus a few bits of furniture provide the setting. A clothes rack holding costumes-for some other Hamlet, no doubt-is at the side and becomes the curtain behind which Polonius and the king hide and later the arras through which Polonius is gored.

The actors are in working clothes. Hamlet wears a black V-necked shirt and black trousers. Claudius and Polonius have on jackets and ties. The other men are in formal jackets, windbreakers, sweaters, slacks and jeans. Gertrude and Ophelia are in blouses and long skirts. Only the strolling players wear costumes when they are enacting the murder of Gonzago-a recognition that some differentiation in attire is useful.

Does this liberate the production from the weight of the customary trappings? If Mr. Burton and his companions think so, one should not quibble. My preference is for costumes, for there is a jarring note at the outset as the majestic Elizabethan language does not consort properly with rehearsal clothes. But as the performance progresses, one forgets about dress and moves into Shakespeare's magnificent imaginative world.

As for the lack of colorful scenery, one does not cavil. We have grown accustomed in recent years to open stages with little or no painted canvas, and the absence of the trumpery and machinery of lavish productions need not be mourned.

For it is liberating to the audience's imagination as well as the actor's to do without the gaudy stuff-at least when you have a play of the magnitude of Hamlet. But it must be added that an uncluttered proscenium stage is not nearly the same thing as an open stage that becomes one with the audience.

It is clear early on that Mr. Burton means to play Hamlet with all the stops out-when the power is wanted. He is aware of the risk of seeming to rant. For it is he who warns that the players must not tear a passion to tatters. But he is unafraid-and he is right.

I do not recall a Hamlet of such tempestuous manliness. In the first two soliloquies Mr. Burton does not hesitate to cry out as if his very soul were in torment, and the thunderous, wrenching climaxes do not ring false. But he reads the "To be or not to be" soliloquy with subdued anguish, like a man communing painfully with himself. Then in the scene that follows with Ophelia, he begins by being ineffably tender, but when he rails at her to get to a nunnery, his rage bespeaks his hatred for himself as well as for a base world.

Mr. Burton's Hamlet is full of pride and wit and mettle. He is warm and forthright with Horatio. As he listens to Polonius's windy craftiness, a look of shrewd contempt hoods his eye. He trades quips with the First Gravedigger with gusto.

Mr. Burton's voice is not mellifluous like those of a few highly cultivated classic actors. It has a hearty ring and a rough edge, attributes that suit his interpretation. He does not, however, scant the poetry. He has a fine sense of rhythm. It is very much his own, with a flair for accenting words and phrases in unexpected ways. But the result, while personal, does no violence to sound or sense.

One has reservations about details. Hamlet prowls too restlessly during the performance of the players. His grabbing of the goblet from Claudius's hand is an effect that disturbs one's eagerness to believe. His standing with sword raised high only inches from the praying Claudius is another liberty that strikes at credibility.

Worthy of being on the stage with this Hamlet is Hume Cronyn's superbly managed and richly fatuous Polonius. Alfred Drake is a little too bland as Claudius, but achieves intensity in the prayer scene. Eileen Herlie is a persuasive Gertrude, especially affecting in the closet scene. George Rose lights up the stage in his brief turn as the First Gravedigger.

George Voskovec as the Player King, Clement Fowler as Rosencrantz, William Redfield as Guildenstern, John Cullum as Laertes, Robert Milli as Horatio, and the dark, sepulchral voice of Mr. Gielgud as the Ghost contribute impressively. Linda Marsh is a little over her head as Ophelia, but manages the Mad Scene with a touch of rue.

As one sits through a long evening that seems all too short, one is humbled afresh by the surge of Shakespeare's poetry, by his tenderness and by his disillusioned awareness of man and his ways. It is the grandeur of Hamlet, not of an actor or director, that prevails.

IMDB writes:

• Richard Burton asked John Gielgud to direct him in this production of Hamlet while they were filming Becket (1964) together.
  
  
• Actor William Redfield, who appeared as Guildernstern in the John Gielgud-directed stage version of Richard Burton Hamlet (1964/I), published a memoir of the event, "Notes of an Actor", in 1967. He wrote that Gielgud had an encyclopedia knowledge of the play and could play any and all parts of it from memory for his cast as he directed the production, but he lacked the overall vision to bring the production together.
  
  
• Richard Burton's adoptive father, Philip Burton, had to intervene and help his son with his interpretation of the melancholy Dane, as well as help other cast members who were confused by director John Gielgud's direction (or lack of it). Philip had been estranged from Richard since the younger Burton left his wife and two daughters to hook up with Elizabeth Taylor on the set of 'Cleopatra (1963)_. Though the two hadn't spoken since the breakup of Richard's marriage, Taylor called Philip and told him that Richard was struggling under Gielgud's direction. Four years earlier, Philip had stepped in to help director Moss Hart with the direction of the 1960 Broadway musical "Camelot" after Hart had had a heart-attack. Father and son were reconciled, and under Philip's tutelage, Richard Burton ultimately presented a Hamlet that was more of the old Jacobian "Revenger" type (known colloquially as "Belleforest" after an adulterated version of the play dating from the 18th Century) that was the antithesis of the Gielgud-Laurence Olivier German Romantic conception of Hamlet that had dominated the English-speaking stage in the 20th century. (In addition to fusing Freud with the Bard, Olivier did add Revenger flourishes to his Hamlet, though, by making the character somewhat of a swashbuckler. However, Belleforest-style Hamlets, such as the one presented by Albert Finney at the National Theatre in 1975, were considered "old-fashioned" as they underplayed the psychology so dear to 20th Century audiences and were typically panned by critics.) Prior to his step-father's help, Richard Burton had found himself unable to convincingly play a Romantic Hamlet under Gielgud's direction. Ironically, as the long run of his Broadway Hamlet went on, a bored Burton would vary his Hamlet night by night according to how he felt. According to his own memoirs, Richard Burton might one night present the prince as a homosexual, while another night add German words to the text in order to see if anyone noticed. Some theatrical mavens who had returned to the theater to see the fiery Hamlet of the opening days of the production criticized Burton for his lack of discipline.
  
  

• The film was scheduled to be shown in cinemas for a week and then all copies were to be destroyed. A single print was found in Richard Burton's garage after his death, which his widow allowed to be distributed as a DVD.
  
  
• By the time this film was made, Frederick Young had replaced Robert Burr in the role of Bernardo.

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