Romeo and Juliet

Synopsis: Feature film. A lavish and reverential adaptation of Shakespeare’s play with Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer in the title roles.
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Year of release: 1936
Duration: 123 mins; 11.102 feet

Production type: Fiction Films
Historical period: Renaissance Italy
Plays: Romeo and Juliet
Subjects: Drama
Keywords: Shakespeare, William (1564-1616)
Related items: Entertainment Parade [19/10/1936]; Hollywood Hotel [04/09/1936]; Jack Benny Program, The [01/11/1936]; Master Will Shakespeare; Romeo y Julieta; Understanding Movies

Notes: The film cost over $2,000,000 to produce and lost money heavily. Although eventually grossing almost £2m, the large print and advertising costs left MGM with a loss. MGM published the scenario together with the full text of the play so the version could be studied critically in schools.

The Birmingham Shakespeare Library holds a typescript.
General: The following year, in the comedy IT’S LOVE I’M AFTER, Howard plays a celebrated stage actor who is seen playing the tomb scene with Bette Davis as his Juliet. Norma Shearer had already played Juliet in the Romeo and Juliet skit in THE HOLLYWOOD REVUE OF 1929.

It is said that the balcony scene in Walt Disney’s SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARVES (1937) is a borrowing from Cukor’s film, along with other scenes.

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British Universities Film & Video Council