The absolute worst!
bushtony and his mother suffer from Congential Stupidtiy and they didn't see it coming.
Impossible to watch knowing she was 34 and he 37 playing teenagers. I know they were big box office stars but gimme a break. Just too ridiculous to me.
shareDue to the production values MGM, Thalberg,and Cukor invested in the project, I wouldn't call it the worst. But Howard, Barrymore and Shearer were all miscast, though they give game performances.
shareBarrymore was 54 as Mercutio and Rathbone was 44 as Tybalt. Barrymore had nothing of the passion of John McEnery. This production has NO soul. Awful.
bushtony and his mother suffer from Congential Stupidtiy and they didn't see it coming.
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That's what I was thinking. Zeffirelli's version stayed truer to the styles and music of the period. Shearer's makeup and hair were too 1930's contemporary; she needed a long-haired, more natural version - which also would've made her look younger, and toned-down makeup, and NO nail polish! Renaissance ladies never wore THAT! Olivia Hussey was not only the right age to play Juliet, but she's a true, natural beauty that wore the styles well. The men (Howard, Barrymore, Rathbone) gave decent performances, but were also a little too long in the tooth to play juveniles, for Heaven's sake! And if they were in Italy, why was all the music British in origin, like the theme written by Henry VIII? Surely there were plenty of Italian composers of the day whose music could have been used?
shareYou know this is an English play, right, not Italian, despite the setting. The English music makes perfect sense.
To a modern eye, it may be jarring to have people in their 30s and 40s playing teenagers--but you have to remember theatrical conventions, and compare this film to theater, not real life. In theater, it was not at all uncommon for great actors and actresses to play all the Shakespearian repertoire. A woman in her 30s or 40s could play Juliet, Lady Macbeth, and Gertrude, without worrying about age. And likewise for male actors. And crowds flocked to see their idols without caring whether their ages fit the characters of the play.
When I was in ninth grade and we read this play, the class wasn't allowed to watch the 1968 Zeferelli version because of the nudity. (IMO, the 1968 version if the best film version.) So instead we watched this one.
While today I can appreciate this film's production value and the actor's performances, when I was 14 I just kept thinking that everyone in the movie looked really old, especially considering the young ages of Romeo and Juliet are in the play. I didn't realize that John Barrymore was only in his 50's at the time of this movie- he looked so much older! This isn't the worst film version of the play, but it's certainly not the best.