File:1900 Maurice (short).jpg

In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the central character, Prince Hamlet, was perceived as effeminate; so it is fitting that the earliest screen success as Hamlet was Sarah Bernhardt in a one-minute film of the fencing scene, in 1900 for the Phono-Cinema Theater exhibit at the Paris 1900 Exhibition. The film had the novel feature of having the sound effects of swords clashing, which was synchronized from a Pathé cylinder to be played along with the film.[29] Silent versions of the play were directed by Georges Méliès in 1907 (Hamlet), Luca Comerio in 1908, William George Barker in 1910, August Blom in 1910, Cecil Hepworth in 1913 and Eleuterio Rodolfi in 1917.[29]

In 1920, Svend Gade directed Asta Nielsen in a version derived from Edward Vining's 1881 book "The Mystery of Hamlet", in which Hamlet is a woman who spends her life disguised as a man.