Romeo and Juliet ***** (1968, Leonard Whiting, Olivia Hussey, Michael York, Pat Heywood, Milo O’Shea, John McEnery, Robert Stephens) – Classic Movie Review 437

Director Franco Zeffirelli’s double-Oscar winning 1968 version of William Shakespeare’s classic romantic tragedy play Romeo and Juliet is a gorgeous and glorious affair. Promoted from an Italian TV production to a cinema movie when Paramount climbed aboard and help provide a big budget, Romeo and Juliet was honoured to be chosen for the 1968 Royal Film Performance.

Most everyone knows the story. In old Verona, young Romeo Montague goes out with his friends to make trouble at a party the feuding rival family Capulets are hosting. When he catches sight of the Capulets’ daughter Juliet, he falls dangerously in love with her.

The casting is perfect and, for once, the star-crossed lovers are actually young and beautiful as they’re supposed to be in the text. Leonard Whiting as Romeo is just 17 and Olivia Hussey as Juliet is only 15. Both of them are very good indeed, especially considering their youth and lack of acting experience. Yes, their inexperience slightly shows, but they inhabit their characters beautifully.

They both won Golden Globes for Most Promising Newcomer. Their careers kept going, yet in neither case was their promise fully realised. Whiting had made his last film to date in 1975, but finally returning with Social Suicide in 2015, together with Hussey.

Zeffirelli comments on his choice of Whiting, picked from 300 youngsters auditioned over more than three months: ‘He has a magnificent face, gentle melancholy, sweet, the kind of idealistic young man Romeo ought to be.’

Zeffirelli had to get special permission to show the 15-year-old Hussey topless, but he worried about her weight during filming and banned her from eating pasta.

There is a myth that she was banned from the premiere as too young to see it. But, happily, Hussey attended the film’s London premiere, introduced to the Queen along with Whiting and Zeffirelli. The film had an A certificate, which simply meant anyone under 16 had to be accompanied.

Zeffirelli cast Hussey again in Jesus of Nazareth (1977), where she played the mother of Robert Powell, who was seven years older than her! Hussey is still acting.

If the young lovers are more or less perfect, the adults are absolutely ideal too. As so often happens, especially in Romeo and Juliet, it is the acting from the supporting cast that lifts the whole movie. All giving distinguished, compelling performances, Michael York co-stars as Tybalt, Pat Heywood as the Nurse, Milo O’Shea as the Friar, John McEnery as Mercutio and Robert Stephens (The Prince of Verona).

Also in the cast are Bruce Robinson (Benvolio), Murray Head, Natasha Parry (Lady Capulet), Paul Hardwick (Lord Capulet), Richard Warwick (Gregory), Roy Holder (Peter).

There are even some Italian actors in the cast: Antonio Pierfederici (Lord Montague), Esmeralda Ruspoli (Lady Montague) and Roberto Bisacco (Lord Paris).

Zeffirelli creates a sumptuous, beautiful film, made entirely on location in Italy – Pienza and Siena in Tuscany, Rome and Viterbo in Lazio, Gubbio and Perugia in Umbria. And there is filming too at the Palazzo Borghese, Artena, in Rome.

Pasqualino De Santis won an Oscar for his splendid work on the rich visuals as cinematographer and Danilo Donati won another for the colourful costumes, as well as the film’s only Bafta award. It was also Oscar nominated as Best Film and for Best Director.

But Nino Rota’s delicious score, Lorenzo Mongiardino’s gorgeous production designs and Luciano Puccini’s art direction ought to have won Oscars too, yet they were not even nominated.

It is based on Zeffirelli’s own 1960 production of William Shakespeare’s play at London’s Old Vic theatre. But here Zeffirelli has completely re-imagined and re-invented it as a movie and cinema experience and he has triumphed in managing to bring both passion and Italy back to the play.

Laurence Olivier, director of the Old Vic theatre, narrates and also dubbed Antonio Pierfederici’s voice because of the actor’s heavy Italian accent.

This excellent movie was the definitive film of the play till Baz Luhrmann finally got it right again in 1996 with William Shakespeare’s Romeo + Juliet. There were previous versions in 1936 as Romeo and Juliet with Leslie Howard and in 1954 as Romeo and Juliet with Laurence Harvey.

The initial release was 149 minutes but it was later cut to a more compact 138 minutes. A tremendous success worldwide, it took $42 million at the US box office.

Bruce Robinson was supposedly inspired by working on this film to write Withnail & I.

Zeffirelli filmed William Shakespeare’s play The Taming of the Shrew (1967) the previous year with Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

Romeo and Juliet returns to UK cinemas on 20 May 2016, opening at BFI Southbank, screening from a new 4K restoration and reissued as part of Shakespeare Lives.

In January 2022, it was announced that Hussey and Whiting are suing the studio Paramount over the nude scenes in the film.

Franco Zeffirelli (1923–2019).

The great Franco Zeffirelli, the Oscar-nominated Best Director for Romeo and Juliet, died on 15 June 2019 at 96. He was born in Florence and died at his home in Rome.

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© Derek Winnert 2013 Classic Movie Review 437 derekwinnert.com