Romeo and Juliet

United Kingdom, Italy

1954

142 Min

Color

1.37:1

Italian

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.
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PROD Sandro Ghenzi, Joseph Janni

SCR Renato Castellani, William Shakespeare

CAST Laurence Harvey, Susan Shentall, Flora Robson, Norman Wooland, Mervyn Johns, John Gielgud, Bill Travers, Sebastian Cabot, Lydia Sherwood, Ubaldo Zollo, Enzo Fiermonte, Giovanni Rota, Giulio Garbinetto

Italian filmmaker and screenwriter Renato Castellani was born in Italy, but spent a few childhood years in Argentina when his father went there on an assignment for Eastman Kodak. Later Castellani was educated in Switzerland. He entered Italian cinema as a screenwriter during the late 1930s after studying architecture in Milan. Among the screenplays were Soldati, and Camerinini. In 1941 he became a director noted for the elegance that imbued his early films. Following WW II, he became known for his up-beat neorealist films. Among his best is Under the Sun of Rome (1948). After 1954, he returned to the detachment of his earlier style and made a British version of Romeo and Juliet. Soon afterwards his film career fizzled, and during the 1960s he began working in Italian television and writing/co-writing scripts. —Sandra Brennan, Rovi

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DT

13Jul12

Boasting grandiloquous, imposing but authentic production, captured by lucid cinematography and the floating camera. The reading itself undergoes some renewal through interpolated content and shedding the rambunctious tone common in takes; further shunning a dry recital, if losing some familiarised flow in the process. The play ultimately remains the same as always, but it’s still quite competent in this way, and distinguishes itself through its form at least. A footnote: Harvey’s Romeo is very decent - hardly a blank canvas.