6 | / 10 |
Users | 0.0 | |
Reviewer | 3.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
Film adaptation of Shakespeare's classic romantic tragedy, where two Italian families have hated each other for years, but the son of one family and the daughter of the other fall desperately in love and secretly marry.
Starring: Laurence Harvey (I), Susan Shentall, Flora Robson, John Gielgud, Norman WoolandRomance | 100% |
Drama | 24% |
Video codec: VC-1
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 1.38:1
Original aspect ratio: 1.85:1
English: Dolby Digital 2.0
English: Dolby Digital 5.1
English
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region A (B, C untested)
Movie | 3.0 | |
Video | 3.0 | |
Audio | 3.0 | |
Extras | 0.0 | |
Overall | 3.0 |
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
2013
1968
2013
2011
2013
2014
Warner Archive Collection
1954
1995
2017
Limited Edition to 3000
1957
2016
1939
Warner Archive Collection
1936
2007
Warner Archive Collection
1988
Restored Edition | Warner Archive Collection
1937
Tears of Joy Edition
2014
2016
2014
1955