Review of All Night Long (1962) by Chris . — 07 Dec 2008

Wow. Leave it to the Brits to produce an adaptation of Shakespeare as a meditation on race and interpersonal relations at the outset of one of the greatest decades of change. Othello, Shakespeare's own timeless and always timely meditation on these same issues, works as well in the early 1960s as it did in the early 1600s, and the soundtrack echoes the never ending discussion of race in relation to jazz music.

If you recall Patrick McGoohan as King Edward I in Braveheart, you know how excellently he can play evil. Here McGoohan, as good an Iago as ever there was, is perfect in the villain role which, as is the case with most of Shakespeare's villains, tends to steal the show, and his quip about all the white jazz musicians holding a convention in a telephone booth provides one of the few funny moments to break the unrelenting tension in this edge-of-your-seat production.