Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.0

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie Review

Is this version largely forgotten for good reason?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman May 7, 2011

Note: The review copy I sent was either defective or was badly authored. The main menu never fully appeared, it instead flickered for a moment and then went to a blank screen, something that "looped" over and over again, back and forth. Therefore there is no screencap of the menu. I was only able to access the film by timing pressing the "enter" button for the split second the menu appeared on screen. I have an email into VCI about this issue and will update the review if and when information is gleaned from them.

Considering its impact on the worlds of literature and drama, there have been surprisingly few English language film adaptations of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. While there are certainly copious versions out there, including everything from early silents to “updates” like West Side Story or Prokofiev’s ballet version, big budget, more or less mainstream, major studio film versions of Shakespeare’s iconic tragedy can be numbered on the fingers of one hand. There’s the 1936 MGM version with Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard, the 1968 Zeffirelli version with Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, and the more recent 1996 Baz Luhrmann opus with Leonardo DiCaprio and Claire Danes. Oh, and lost in the shuffle there somewhere is the now largely forgotten 1954 version released by J. Arthur Rank, a joint Italian-British production starring Laurence Harvey and Susan Shentall in what was evidently her only screen outing. This sumptuous Technicolor film won a bevy of international awards upon its release and was at least partially praised for its production values (which included authentic settings filmed in Italy), but it has been largely lost to the vagaries of time and history, and very few if any film lovers consider it in any cursory review of the various Romeos and Juliets which have graced the big screen. Seen now from the vantage point of well over a half century, the film has both its positive and negative points. It is clearly one of the most impressive film versions of Shakespeare’s play from a production design standpoint, and there are several impressive performances to be enjoyed, especially with regard to the stellar supporting cast. And while Harvey and Shentall are the most age appropriate Romeo and Juliet next to Hussey and Whiting, they seem a pair mostly lacking a romantic spark between them, perhaps the film’s greatest detriment (notwithstanding some major changes director Castellani made to Shakspeare’s original) and the one which has kept the film as a whole from being more widely appreciated.

Renato Castellani adapted and directed this Romeo and Juliet, and this remains one of his better known works to Western audiences (his most famous piece might be his screenplay for Marriage—Italian Style). Castellani has incredible visual sense, and stages this Romeo and Juliet with unerring flair and incredible utilization of location shooting. In fact from a visual perspective, this is one of the most gorgeous versions of Romeo and Juliet ever committed to celluloid. While Castellani’s Verona may indeed be a bit fanciful at times (the Capulets’ vault must be seen to be believed), overall there’s a thrilling feeling of verisimilitude running throughout this version which anchors it quite nicely in its putative setting and time period.

Where Castellani goes seriously astray is in his editing of Shakespeare’s text. Wholelsale cuts of major speeches and scenes are made, and bizarre pieces of stage business are interpolated at various moments, seemingly for no other reason than to open up the play and give Castellani more chances to shoot the engaging Italian countryside. The minimizing of the Nurse (played robustly by the ever reliable Flora Robson) is one of the stranger choices, especially considering Robson’s full blooded take on the role. But over and over again, Castellani shunts supposedly major supporting characters (Mercutio and Thybalt, to name but two) off to the side, while never replacing their presence with anything that helps to fill in the dramatic gaps.

But the chief problem most people will probably have with this version is the inert chemistry between Harvey and Shentall. Surprisingly, Harvey may come off as the lesser performer here. His patrician aloofness may work well for a Romeo who is here imagined more as a “starcrossed Hamlet,” isolated and alone, than a desperately in love teenager, but in his scenes with Shentall, it seems horribly misplaced and deprives the romantic aspect of the story its needed passion. Shentall actually reminds me of another youngster who made her film debut perhaps more than a bit unwillingly and suffered the slings and arrows of critical brickbats in the process—Jean Seberg in Otto Preminger’s strangely reviled Saint Joan. As with the Seberg performance, which now has a refreshing honesty and naïvete, Shentall’s very inexperience makes her Juliet winsome and somehow more dignified and tragic, although to be fair she never really rises to the epic dramatic heights that are needed for the film’s climax.

That may be a fatal flaw in a film so completely focused on its primary pair of lovers, but if you look to the sidelines, there are a number of nuanced and well crafted performances to be had. John Gielgud, himself a legendary Romeo (and Hamlet) from his younger days, here single-handedly takes on the role of The Chorus, and delivers Shakespeare’s gorgeous language in his redolent tones. Sebastian Cabot, best known to Baby Boomers as Mr. French from the sitcom Family Affair, is a surprisingly venal and Capulet, bringing a fair amount of gravitas and an underlying decrepitude to the role, something which may surprise those of a certain age who remember him only as Jody and Buffy’s “nanny.” Many critics have decried Mervyn Johns’ Friar, but if taken on its own buffoonish terms, it’s really rather enjoyable.

One way or the other, this is a picture postcard of a film that is incredibly scenic, if never really dramatically captivating. Castellani had one half of a winning combination here, namely the visual sweep and brilliantly smart use of Technicolor and location shooting. Unfortunately for a drama of Romeo and Juliet’s legendary standing, sets and costumes can pretty much be jettisoned (as any number of “reinterpretations” have proven) as long as the drama itself is left unscathed. That is Castellani’s downfall and what leaves him, in the annals of film versions of Romeo and Juliet, fortune’s fool.

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Romeo and Juliet arrives on Blu-ray with a VC-1 encoded 1080p transfer in 1.38:1. There are both some enjoyable positives as well as some troubling negatives about this transfer. The Technicolor hues are largely intact, especially with regard to the reds, but some of the greens seem pallid and flesh tones often have a slightly yellow cast to them. There are occasional registration problems which are further exacerbated by some minor flicker issues (pay attention to the background in Gielgud's opening speech for a good example). The overall image is fairly soft looking, and there appears to have been at the very least moderate DNR applied to this transfer, resulting in a complete lack of fine detail (or indeed any detail) in some midrange and far range shots. Close-ups are much better in this regard, and the good news is Castellani frames many of the more important dramatic moments in fairly close setups, helping to at least partially alleviate this problem. The print does not seem to have any egregious damage, perhaps the result of digital scrubbing.

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Two lossy Dolby Digital mixes are included on this Blu-ray, a 2.0 (original mono) mix and a repurposed 5.1 mix. I haven't been able to definitively find any information on how this film was shot, especially in the Italian segments, as there are some minor, albeit annoying, synchronization issues on both of these tracks, somewhat more apparent on the 5.1 than on the 2.0. If Castellani made this film as was the standard in Italy in those days (and for a good while afterward), all dialogue would have been looped after the actual filming, which might account for some of these issues. But at least large swaths of this film were made in England, where one assumes the soundtrack would have been recorded simultaneously to the filming, so I'm at a loss to explain this anomaly. Because of the synchronization issues, I opted to stick with the 2.0 mix, which is closer to the original sound design anyway. That said, the 5.1 is appealingly spacious and doesn't have the faux surround sound that so often hobbles these repurposings, perhaps due to the fact that the surround channels are only intermittently engaged. There's a fair amount of hiss to be heard throughout this track (you'll notice it especially before the iconic ringing of the Rank Organisation gong), but overall there's not a lot of damage here, and the dialogue is very well reproduced. Roman Vlad's brilliant choral score also sounds very good throughout the film. There's a certain narrowness and expected chop off in extreme highs and lows throughout the film, but overall things sound acceptable, if not spectacular.

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The Original Trailer (HD; 3:46) is the only supplement on this Blu-ray. It played directly and automatically after the feature on this (perhaps defective) disc.

Romeo and Juliet Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Zeffirelli's 1968 version of Romeo and Juliet was such an epochal generational event that it immediately outshone every version of the play that had been filmed previously, and its impact hasn't diminished much in the intervening years. In some ways, this 1954 version is more visually spectacular than Zeffirelli's, but it suffers from too much needless tinkering with Shakespeare's text, and Harvey and Shentall, despite some momentary strengths for each of them, are too bloodless together to ever generate much romantic heat. Film lovers, especially those with a particular interest in Shakespeare, may want to check out this release if for no other reason than its absolutely sumptuous look.