Romeo & Juliet ( 1968 ) ( Romeo e Giulietta (Romeo and Juliet) ) [ Blu-Ray, Reg.A/B/C Import - Sweden ]

..for all the family, even with flash of nudity. Shakespeare at his best. It doesn't matter if you can't understand the words, love is a universal language.

I love this version of Romeo & Juliette.

This movie is (unbelievably) 55 years old and is as great as ever. The actors and music are unforgettable and completely make the movie forever memorable. This could still pass asa modern, contemporary movie….except they don’t make good movies anymore. Buy this and watch it with your kids and grandkids. They’ll never forget it. Just looking at Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting for 2 hours is worth 20 times the price of the movie! 😊

Some truncation, but with you Leonard Whiting's butt and codpiece, and Olivia's breast - an excellent movie.

As far as I know, Zefferelli has maybe one badly reviewed film to his name: "Tea With Mussolini". Everything else the man has done has been praised to the skies and been worthy of it. If you don't believe me, rent this movie or "La Traviata" and you'll see why! His version of this famous story is the film that gave birth to that reputation.Shakespeare's "Romeo & Juliet" is the 'quotemeister' for me amongst his plays. "Hamlet", of course, has quite a few memorable ones, and most often is the one quoted. however, R&J is BRIMMING with bon mots! Voila:"Drawn...?! And talk of peace?! I hate the word.""I tell you, he who lays hold of her, shall have the chinks!""Sweetmeats tainted are!""Who is Tybalt? Better then King of Cats, I'll wager!""I move for no man's pleasure, I!""T'is not so wide as a church door, nor as deep as a well, but t'is enough, t'will suffice!""Come back tomorrow, and you will find me a grave man....!""I AM FORTUNE'S FOOL!!""This day is black feint!""PUNK RAMPANT!!""I know better men than him, and twenty such jacks...""Now...hie thee home....FRAGMENT!""What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet....""Give me a case to put my visage in!""True...I talk of dreams, which are the children of an idle brain...""She doth teach the torches to burn bright! She hangs upon the cheek of night, like a rich jewel in an ethiop's ear!"I could go on for paragraphs listing all the great turns of phrase in this play/film, something Shakespeare was known for, but I'll spare you. Suffice it to say that the acting of all members of the cast is excellent, particularly John McEnry's Mercutio...he really couldn't have been a better choice for the role, as the jester among the Montagues. Olivia Hussey's Juliet is an elfin, delicate beauty that most fellas would give their left arm for, especially Italian fellas at the edge of the Middle Ages! Pat Heywood's Nurse is excellent...somehow, her exuberant and natural reading of the role allows you to ignore the fact that her rather strong cockney accent should be out of place in 17th century Verona. Michael York's Tybalt is great! The way he is made up, he resembles a mischievous young bull minus the horns, just the right look for the contentious, troublemaking character. The one SLIGHTLY weak spot seems to be Leonard Whiting as Romeo...he seems too plastic, too pretty...too perfect looking for a roughhousing teenage boy fascinated with the sweet young Juliet.He is, however, light years better in the role than the weak presence cast in the OTHER prominent version of the story, the Norma Shearer/Leslie Howard version done in the 30s. Except for Shearer, who is a revelation in WHATEVER she's in, this version was a casting director's NIGHTMARE! Howard was a TRULY wimpy Romeo, totally unbelievable; John Barrymore was a 50 yr. old Mercutio and looked it, and, (and I have no idea who the casting director was who made THIS mistake,) Andy Devine was cast as a prominent supernumerary! That's Andy Devine, as in "Pluck your magic twanger, Froggy!" If it hadn't been for the presence of Ms. Shearer in this cast as Juliet and for the excellent B&W cinematography, the movie would be completely unwatchable. As it stands now, it's camp joke that should fuel Saturday night giggle parties for every university drama class you can name from here until Gabriel blows his horn!Zefferelli's film was immensely popular for its time, making something like $40,000,000, if I'm not mistaken, in its initial release. It is beautifully staged, cast, acted and researched and can still hold an audience 36 years after the fact! The script seems to be written in a style very faithful to that of Shakespeare's own and the actors' turns of these phrases are expert in just about every case.Nowhere in the world of filmed period plays will you see a better production than this geniune 60s phenomonon, (except for maybe "Amadeus", "The Lion in Winter" or "Excalibur"). Buy it or rent it...you will enjoy it.

The difference between a Ferrari and a Miata is that, when the tail-light lens falls off of your Miata, you swear. When the tail-light lens falls off of your Ferrari, you carefully pick it up, wash it off in lukewarm water with a little dish soap, and go down to the Ferrari dealership to pay $47 for an original hand-made pair of Italian screws to replace the ones that vibrated out, and you screw it back on with the words "Thank goodness it wasn't broken."Why? Because a Miata is a mass-produced appliance, while a Ferrari is a hand-made work of art that has a soul. This film is a Ferrari, and it inspires nothing but awe and fierce, passionate love even as its tail-light lenses are falling off and its door handles are loose and its chrome trim obviously isn't perfectly straight. As an English teacher, I've seen this film approximately 35 times now, and I am still entertained by finding new technical inconsistencies in it. A list of them would be almost impossible to compile, but for example, Benvolio is stabbed in the eye by Tybalt's sword at the very start of the film, and something like five minutes later he is talking to Lady Capulet, completely unwounded. Tybalt repeatedly tells Romeo to "turn and draw," despite the fact that he isn't wearing a sword, and later Romeo approaches the tomb with his sword on, then enters it with the sword having mysteriously disappeared. Juliet is put into the grave with her shroud covered in roses thrown by grieving local maidens, but later when Romeo appears to pull the shroud away, the roses have disappeared. And it goes on and on and on through the film. Technically, from the standpoint of mere careful film-making, this film is an undeniable mess.And to my students and to me and to apparently hundreds of thousands of other people across the world, it does not matter one bit that it is. Like that 1960's Ferrari, this film is a flawed work of art - a work of art of such beauty, of such soul, of such passion, of such magnificence, that the flaws shrink into utter insignificance for all but the most anal and prejudiced of viewers. I'm not going to describe it here - that would steal from it and I couldn't do it justice. Just watch it, and if you have even a drop of hot-blooded youth left in you at all, if you aren't completely mummified, the film will explain itself. Watch it in the dark, on a big screen, with a good sound system. The music, the costuming, the casting, the setting, the lighting... all of it has that special stamp of beauty and art and aesthetic that Italy has long been known for throughout the world.The only reason I was tempted to withhold the 5th star was for how many speeches, scenes and lines have been omitted. All the basics are there, of course. The big scenes are almost complete. But Franco Zefferelli was obviously doing his best to avoid overwhelming a non-Shakespeare-reading audience with the Bard's admittedly challenging words, words which have the ring of heaven's own stamp and which I wish were there in their entirety. Juliet's speech while she is waiting for Romeo in her bedroom and her speech before she takes the sleeping potion, for example, have both been omitted - much to the detriment of the story in my mind. Otherwise, the excellent Leonardo DeCaprio-Claire Danes film notwithstanding, this masterpiece from 1967 is still the gold standard and Olivia Hussey is still the unchallenged soul of Juliet in the hearts of most of the world.

This Zeffirelli film is considered by many to be the definitive screen version of Shakespeare’s tragic love story. Watching it again transports me back to the cinema where my English teacher took us to see the newly released film during our O-Level studies. It had such a profound effect on me and remains a favourite to this day.Zefferelli’s risk of having two unknowns playing the leads paid off, there’s a rightful innocence about their performance. They are supported by a rich and wonderful cast, not least John McEnery as Mercutio and Milo O’Shea as Friar Lawrence. I recently learnt that, although not credited, Lawrence Olivier read the prologue and dubbed the voice of Lord Montague.While the text is not verbatim, it has been judiciously edited so the film, at just over two hours, is not laboured. It’s a worthwhile watch and a good starting place for students setting out to study the play.However, it’s worth seeking out the DVD version. At a third of the price the quality is only marginally less than the Blue-Ray. Sadly, both versions have mono soundtracks.

This is an excellent production of the classic play with the Shakespeare script delivered in period costume as intended. It is well acted by all the cast, with strong performances by both the two leads despite their young ages. Although the film is nearly 50 years old the production stands the test of time and the picture quality is still reasonable (this has obviously been produced in a widescreen format) and the dialogue is clear.I admit that when it comes to Shakespeare it like it presented as The Bard intended and as we have here (no leather jackets, no jeans and certainly no mumbling, please!). My daughter is currently studying R&J for her GCSE and it was great for her to see the play acted out in this format.

When it comes to finding the best film adaptations of William Shakespeares iconic plays, I usually find the older the films are, the better they are, especially in regards to wearing the right period costumes which suit the dialogue. And I would place Franco Zeffirellis 1968 film adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in my top 12 list of greatest Shakespeare film adaptations, along with As You Like It (1936), Henry V (1944), Othello (1951), Julius Caesar (1953), Richard Third (1955), Chimes At Midnight (1965), A Midsummer Nights Dream (1968), Hamlet (1969), King Lear (1971), Macbeth (1971), and The Tempest (1979)

Brilliantly made movie by the great Franco Zeffirelli. I remember it from my schooldays, when my class was taken to the cinema to see it. I remember being slightly shocked (at the tender age of 13) by the naked body of Romeo with his love Juliet, though it was very well acted and directed, nothing sleezy about this version of the great Will Shakespeare's wonderful work. As with many films, there was a fair amount of fighting, which possibly went on a bit too long, but seeing it again all these years later, I believe it was justified. I was left in tears at the end, and it felt as though time had stood still, the emotion was still as strong as back in the 60s when I first saw it. Worth every penny!

CAUTION - SPOILERSMade in 1968 by Franco Zeffirelli, this is the nearest audiences can be to what Shakespeare intended without being in the theatre. I feel sure Shakespeare would have loved it.The richness of the lives they led is lavishly set off with wonderful costumes and settings, all back up by a great musical score making subtle use of Gregorian chant; it has tunes which will linger for many months in the mind and voice-box.Although there are moments in the 2002 version with Leonardo di Caprio and Claire Danes which I feel sure Zeffirelli envied, e.g. in the final scenes, Juliet awakes as Romeo dies and they see each other. No other production I have seen creates this heightened moment in a scene already stretching emotions to the limit.The heat, excitement, frustration and family feuds all appear white hot on the screen and the two teenagers bring Romeo and Juliet alive with all too believable conviction.Highly recommended.