List Price: $19.98You Pay Only: $17.99 You Save: $1.99 (10%)Prices subject to change.
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569795273
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, DVD-Video, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: August 14, 2007
Running Time: 119 minutes
Sales Rank: 33503
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: September 03, 1936
Related Items:
Editorial Review:
Description:
Shakespeare's classic tale of love and youth ruined by a family feud. The Montagues and the Capulets, two powerful families of Verona, hate each other. Romeo, a Montague, crashes a Capulet party, and there meets Juliet. They fall in love and secretly marry. After killing a nephew of Lady Capulet in a fight, Romeo is banished from Verona. Capulet tries to marry Juliet to Paris, a prince. Juliet seeks the counsel of Friar Laurence, who married her and Romeo. He suggests a daring plan that ends tragically.
Amazon.com:
The lovers of Shakespeare's tragi-romance are brought to suitably quivering life by Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard in this glossy 1936 MGM take on the play. And yes, they're a tad older than the headstrong youths of Shakespeare's story (Howard was 43!), but they make up for that with sheer fervor. Shearer's performance looks like Great Lady acting at times, but she commits completely to Juliet's passion, and Howard is a delight. Basil Rathbone and Edna May Oliver are slam-dunk casting as Tybalt and the Nurse, respectively, and if John Barrymore is too weathered for Mercutio, he nevertheless works up an antic, sarcastic energy in the role. The production was supervised by MGM boy wonder Irving Thalberg (Shearer's husband), and it's an utterly lavish affair; the courtyard for the balcony scene looks exactly as expansive and studio-moon-drenched as your romantic imagination tells you it should. The film went the way of many such prestige productions: director George Cukor later said it lost a million dollars. (This was the same year he made Sylvia Scarlett, another box-office flop that has aged well.) It may be Shakespeare Lite, but the film zips along on the back of a love story that has been, to say the least, quite durable over the years. --Robert Horton
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - A Jewelry Box Treasure of The Bard's Classic Romance
Very few people are familiar with this lavish, Old Hollywood production of Shakespeare's ROMEO & JULIET, but it is a gem of a movie. It has, in my opinion, the finest cast ever assembled in the history of Shakespeare on film. Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard are both far over the usual age limit for Romeo and Juliet respectively, but they give such beautiful performances that one doesn't notice. In fact, if I hadn't known the ages of the stars (Howard was in his early 40s and Shearer in her mid 30s) I wouldn't have thought either of them to be out of their 20s, so young do their faces look and how vivacious and youthful their performances are. Norma Shearer is my favorite Juliet on film because her tears over Romeo are so genuine and so moving and she perfectly portrays youthful vigor and womanly grace. Leslie Howard, likewise, is probably my favorite Romeo - no other Romeo is so sure of his words or as much of a true gentleman as Howard's Romeo. Edna May Oliver as the Nurse is simply a delight through and through and is easily the best actress on film to play the role, and Basil Rathbone is a wonderful Tybalt in that he portrays him as a bold nobleman with a fierce devotion to family and its honor rather than a hot-headed conventional jerk as the character tends to be portrayed. John Barrymore as Mercutio is also smashing, lending the character a sarcastic, joking energy that I had never seen before. Barrymore also plays Mercutio as a womanizing flirt, which I found refreshing because ... Read More
Rating:  - Hooray For Norma
While this movie does require a certain suspension of belief (Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard cast as teenagers?), the general glossiness of the end-product compensates for the slight tweaking regarding casting. This film reflects MGM at its best doing what the studio was noted for: mounting a production with the grandeur expected for a writer no-less than the great Shakespeare.
Actually, Norma Shearer was effective playing the giddy and girlish Juliet and conveyed an incandescent loveliness. Howard's Romeo was seemingly a much harder sell as no amount of tricky make-up could make him appear adequately youthful, yet he managed to do a credible job. The rest of the cast was perfection......esp. Edna Mae Oliver as Juliet's nurse. The sets were lush and realistic looking.
Rating: - Exquisite Despite the Flaws
This 1936 production of "Romeo and Juliet" was the last that Irving Thalberg saw to completion. It is certainly replete with what has become known as the "prestige" details MGM was bent on in the 30s and 40s. However, there is much more here than may meet the initial eye. Yes, John Barrymore is too old (visually) and so over-the-top that he seems to be performing in a another film (or universe). It's hedgehog acting with no subtleties whatsoever. And the production values, while grandly luxurious, represent the generic and implausible MGM splendor in all its redolence.
Still, there is much to recommend this film. Rare in early Shakespeare films the dialogue, while truncated, is exacting and emotively driven. And director George Cukor makes this potentially sloggish material move quickly and energetically. Most of all, there are the major performances. Edna May Oliver may be doing her quintessential EMO shtick for all time, and Andy Devine is anything but. Still, the intensely menacing Basil Rathbone deserved his Oscar nomination for his predatorily mercurial performance. Much has been made of the age of the two lead actors but, as they say, to play these roles convincingly an actor has to be too old for the part. After disbending disbelief, Leslie Howard becomes the quintessential Romeo, all temperate romanticism and emphatic longing...his slim waist belies his age and lends to the acceptance of him in the role. And finally, the glorious Norma Shearer. As in many of her ... Read More
Rating: - Opulent Production
Visually - this is one of the best looking black and white period films I've ever seen. The photography, costumes and sets are spectacular. Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard are too old for their roles and were not Shakespearean actors, but are better than most Hollywood actors in classical parts. It was common during this era for older actors to play these roles on stage. John Barrymore stands out from the rest. I've only seen this on VHS, but the DVD transfer should be sharp and clear.
Rating: - pimple-free and genuinely moving
One of my favorite teaching units over the years has been comparing film versions of Shakespeare. My adult students preferred the "active gore" in Polanski's MACBETH over what I found to be the riches of the Densch/McKellan version, and similarly preferred the panting adolescents of Zeffirelli's version to the double-aged Cukor film. Eros by any other name....
My bias for the Cukor version is based on impact. Zeffirelli's adaptations of Shakespeare never trusted the language, and therefore resorted to near slapstick antics to keep the audience awake. That director's "appreciation" of Leonard Whiting's beauty shortchanged subtleties in Olivia Hussey's performance right up to her abrupt "real" death scene. I don't dislike the teener version, I enjoy the song, and I do recall that teenaged girls in my home town literally swooned in the aisles of the theater at the tragedy's climax. But the Cukor film provides no less resonance--on its own terms and without the breathless mugging.
The greatest satisfaction for me is that Cukor and his actors trust the dialogue. This is an excellent assemblage of truly accomplished actors, who plumb the depths of their speeches magnificently. Granted, Reginald Denny bravely paunches through a role he was not born to play. (Denny's most startling starring role was in DeMille's supreme "camp musical" MADAM SATAN in 1930.) But Barrymore's Mercutio does nicely with Queen Mab and is compelling in his "plague" speech. If nothing else, it's ... Read More
Browse for similar items by category:
|
