Roméo et Juliette

Dwarfed by the -superior- version of Zephirelli (1968),this Riccardo Freda movie in not devoid of interest ;the two principals who were 23 and 20 , were closer to the heroes'age in the play than the Cukor ones ,Leslie Howard (42!) and Norma Shearer (35!).

Geronimo Meynard who plays Romeo is youthful and rather cute ,but his performance is a bit monotonous -it was to be his very last movie- ;The same goes for Rosemary Dexter who is a lovely Juliet ,but we find it hard to believe that these two are eaten with desire and passion.

On the other hand ,the cinematography is splendid indeed ,with superb landscapes and the lovers are nicely filmed ;the movie is rather short,and all happens quickly ,perhaps too quickly ,with scenes too hurried for comfort,but there's never a dull moment;Freda ,who was good at horror movies ,suceeds in making the last scene in vault perfectly gruesome . Good use of classical music .

This is actually a very interesting version of one of the greatest of all love tragedies. They have disposed of most of the verse of Shakespeare but strictly maintained the story with all its details, so this short film version "alla breve" almost presents the story like a documentary in admirable exactness, almost in neo-realistic style making the great drama a rather concise family chronicle, and all the actors are perfect, especially friar Laurence, and Romeo, (Geronimo Meynier in his last role) is almost like Alain Delon. The staging is perfect in convincing pre-renaissance settings (although in one of the scenes there is a world map including the New World, which hadn't been discovered yet, in something of a goof but a likeable one,) and very proper costumes. As an alternative to all the meticulous renderings of Shakespeare's play it is the best version before Zeffirelli's four years later.