[Prof. Masiello]

About the five-movie Romeo and Juliet compilation:

What did you think of the different versions?

What do you think about the early 1930s B&W one?

Which one seems a more authentic version of the play?

[Khomeshwari Sankar]

In my opinion, if something was written a certain way and had quite the success, there is no reason to remake and change it. We’ve had plenty of Romeo and Juliet movies made, some good, some not so great and some we just rather not mention. But apparently some people think that since they can’t come up with something on their own, they can get something from someone else and change it up. Not cool!

The 1936 version was played by Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer who were actually a bit too old to play the parts of two young teenagers in love. Howard was 43 as Shearer was 34.

More than eighteen film versions of Romeo and Juliet have been made, and by far the most popular is Franco Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet, filmed in 1968 and starring Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting. Over the last fifty years many have attempted to translate the plot of Romeo and Juliet into the modern era. This is what happen when i was trying to look it up on Amazon Prime, so much to choose from but the one from 1968 had the most rated one with five stars.

[Prof. Masiello]

I am not sure about 18 versions, but Romeo and Juliet has been done as opera and ballet, and of course West Side Story

The leading cast of the 1930s film are far too old. Frankly, they could have been the parents instead, but teenagers were not as big a presence in motion pictures back then. In fact, teenagers as a cultural force to be reckoned with did not really emerge until the 1950s. Then they started having their own styles and so forth.

[Sara Zheng]

As mentioned above how the casts of Romeo and Juliet for the 1930s are too old, it does not fit the character for Romeo on how teens would act. The 1968 film had better portrayal for the characters as the age matches and Zeffirelli puts Romeo in a more heroic spotlight for viewers to sympathize with on excluding the murder of Paris.