Feeling that he has been kept in virtual servitude by his elder brother Oliver since the death of their father, Sir Rowland de Boys, Orlando complains to his brother, who then slaps him. Orlando responds by grabbing his brother’s throat and throwing him down, and he does not let him up until Oliver agrees to give him the allotment left by their father. As Orlando leaves, Oliver vows to himself that Orlando shall not get his inheritance. Charles, a huge wrestler, warns Oliver that Orlando plans to challenge him the next day at the estate of Duke Frederick, who has recently banished the previous duke, his younger brother. Although Oliver encourages Charles to break Orlando’s neck, Orlando bests Charles, whereupon Frederick’s niece Rosalind gives him a chain that she wears. Orlando is speechless, encumbered with feelings of love, and Rosalind’s cousin and confidante Celia sees that she is also strongly affected. After Frederick, in an ill-temper, calls his niece a traitor and orders her to leave or face death, Celia suggests that they go together to the forest of Arden where Rosalind’s father lives with a band of followers. To disguise themselves, Rosalind dresses as a man and calls herslf Ganymede, while Celia goes as Aliena, Ganymede’s sister. When Frederick discovers them gone, he sends for Orlando, thinking he knows their whereabouts. Meanwhile, Oliver’s old servant Adam informs Orlando that Oliver plans to burn his house with him in it, and they leave together. In the forest of Arden, Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone, Frederick’s fool, whom they have convinced to journey with them, overhear Sylvius, a young shepherd, confess to Corin, an older and more cynical shepherd, that he loves Phebe, a young maiden. Meanwhile, Orlando, starving, draws his sword on the exiled duke and his followers. The duke’s hospitality relieves Orlando’s anger, and learning Orlando’s identity, the duke reveals his affection for Orlando’s deceased father. Frederick, learning that Orlando has gone, seizes Oliver’s lands. In the forest, Orlando attaches poems proclaiming his love for Rosalind to trees. After Rosalind, still dressed as Ganymede, reads them, she taunts Orlando and professes to be able to cure him of his love if he will imagine her to be Rosalind and woo her everyday, while she will alternately like and loathe him, and thus drive him mad so that he will forget Rosalind. Later, Rosalind and Celia spy Phebe rebuke Sylvius’ entreaties. Sylvius loves Phebe all the more after her rebukes, and Phebe becomes greatly attracted to Rosalind after she, as Ganymede, berates her. Because Orlando arrives late to see Rosalind, she scorns him at first, but then encourages him and has Celia conduct a mock marriage. When Orlando announces that he must leave for two hours to attend the duke at dinner, Rosalind warns him not to be late to return to her. On his way to see the duke, Orlando sees Oliver asleep under a tree with a snake curling around his throat and hears a lioness nearby. Later, Oliver comes to see Rosalind and Celia to explain the reason that Orlando has not come: he fought the lioness and rescued him; after a tearful reunion, Orlando found that the lioness had torn some flesh away, and he fainted from loss of blood. Upon hearing this, Rosalind also faints. During his visit, Oliver falls in love with Celia. Later, when Orlando tells Rosalind that his brother’s upcoming marriage to Celia the next day has made him melancholy because of his love for Rosalind, she promises that if he loves her, he will marry her the next day. After Rosalind is reunited with her father, she marries Orlando, Celia marries Oliver, Phebe marries Sylvius and Touchstone marries a farm girl, Audrey. During the celebrations, a soldier from Duke Frederick reports that the duke, upon entering the forest to kill his brother, met an old religious man and was converted, and that the crown and lands have been restored to the exiled duke. Outside the gates, Rosalind delivers an epilogue in which she changes into a man to charge women to like as much of the play as it pleases them. Changing back to a woman, she charges men that between them and women, the play may please. More on Wikipedia or Mubi
Watch As You Like It (1936) British Film
