Romeo and Juliet (1936 film)
Romeo and Juliet is a 1936 American film adapted from the play by William Shakespeare, directed by George Cukor from a screenplay by Talbot Jennings. The film stars Leslie Howard as Romeo and Norma Shearer as Juliet,[3][4] and the supporting cast features John Barrymore, Basil Rathbone, and Andy Devine.
For other uses, see Romeo and Juliet (disambiguation).Romeo and Juliet
Cukor's 1936 adaptation stays largely faithful to Shakespeare's text but makes use of the cinematic medium to enhance the drama and romance of the story. The film, set against lavish sets and costumes, was a grand production for its time and featured Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard in the titular roles.
Plot[edit]
In the Italian city of Verona, two noble families, the Montagues and the Capulets, are locked in a bitter feud. Despite the longstanding animosity between their families, Romeo Montague and Juliet Capulet meet and fall deeply in love at a masquerade ball.
The two secretly marry with the help of Juliet's nurse and Friar Laurence, hoping that their union might bring peace to their feuding families. However, the street brawls between the Montagues and Capulets intensify. Mercutio, Romeo's close friend, is killed by Tybalt, Juliet's cousin. In a fit of rage, Romeo avenges Mercutio's death by killing Tybalt, leading to his banishment from Verona.
Juliet is devastated by both Tybalt's death and Romeo's banishment. Her parents, unaware of her secret marriage to Romeo, arrange for her to marry Paris. Desperate to avoid this fate and be with Romeo, Juliet takes a potion that makes her appear dead. Romeo, not knowing it is a ruse and believing Juliet to be truly dead, returns to Verona and takes poison beside her. Juliet awakens, finds Romeo dead, and kills herself.
The tragic deaths of the young lovers lead the Montagues and Capulets to reconcile, but it is a reconciliation born from great loss and sorrow.
Premiere[edit]
On the night of the Los Angeles premiere of the film at the Carthay Circle Theatre, legendary MGM producer Irving Thalberg, husband of Norma Shearer, died at age 37. The stars in attendance were so grief-stricken that publicist Frank Whitbeck, standing in front of the theater, abandoned his usual policy of interviewing them for a radio broadcast as they entered and simply announced each one as he or she arrived.[20]
Reception[edit]
According to MGM records, the film earned $2,075,000 worldwide but because of its high production cost lost $922,000.[2]
Some critics liked the film, but on the whole, neither critics nor the public responded enthusiastically. Graham Greene wrote that he was "less than ever convinced that there is an aesthetic justification for filming Shakespeare at all... the effect of even the best scenes is to distract."[21][22] "Ornate but not garish, extravagant but in perfect taste, expansive but never overwhelming, the picture reflects great credit upon its producers and upon the screen as a whole", wrote Frank Nugent in a rave review for The New York Times. "It is a dignified, sensitive and entirely admirable Shakespearean—not Hollywoodean—production."[23] Variety called the film a "faithful" adaptation with "very beautiful" costuming, but also found it "not too imaginative" and "a long sit" at over two hours.[24] Film Daily raved that it was a "superb and important achievement" and "one of the most important contributions to the screen since the inception of talking pictures."[25] John Mosher of The New Yorker called it "a very definite achievement" but "somewhat cumbersome", writing "This is a good, sensible presentation of 'Romeo and Juliet,' but it won't be one you'll hark back to when you are discussing the movies as great art, if you do ever discuss them as great art."[26]
Many moviegoers considered the film too "arty", staying away as they had from Warner's A Midsummer Night's Dream a year before and leading Hollywood to abandon the Bard for over a decade.[27] The film nevertheless received four Oscar nominations [28] and for many years was considered one of the great MGM classics. In his annual Movie and Video Guide, Leonard Maltin gives both this film version and the popular 1968 Franco Zeffirelli version (with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting) an equal rating of three-and-a-half stars.
More recently, scholar Stephen Orgel describes Cukor's film as "largely miscast ... with a preposterously mature pair of lovers in Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer, and an elderly John Barrymore as a stagey Mercutio decades out of date."[29] Barrymore was in his fifties, and played Mercutio as a flirtatious tease.[17] Orgel adds that Tybalt, often portrayed as a hot-headed troublemaker, is played by Basil Rathbone as stuffy and pompous.[30]
Patricia Tatspaugh observes that subsequent film versions made use of "younger, less experienced but more photogenic actors"[17] in the central roles.[17] Cukor, interviewed in 1970, said of this film: "It's one picture that if I had to do over again, I'd know how. I'd get the garlic and the Mediterranean into it."[31]