Karry Best movie of this year hands down!

Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

richard-1787 This movie had everything going for it. Clearly, visibly a big budget, with some very impressive production numbers. Some very fine actors - John Barrymore may have been drunk much of the time, but he still gives a memorable performance as Mercutio. Edna May Olliver is great as the Nurse. Basil Rathbone is evil as Tybalt. But for reasons I can't really explain, this movie just didn't hold me. I kept thinking of the Midsummer Night's Dream that Max Rinehardt did for Warner Brothers about the same time, in many ways a magical movie. This movie is often impressive, but, for me, it was never magical.Some will criticize the casting of Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer as Romeo and Juliet. Yes, they are clearly much too old to be taken as adolescents. But they don't try to be adolescents, so the play becomes the story of two middle-aged people in love, which didn't bother me at all. I find Shearer to be a very mannered actress, good in some things stilted in others. She very much overdoes Juliet, to my eyes, though I could see a teen-age girl acting just the same way.If you like the play, or even if you don't, watch this movie once. I don't know that I could sit through it again a second time myself.

joe-pearce-1 Reading these other reviews brought me to the point where I almost screamed at the inanity of the repetitive commentary about the ages of Howard, Shearer and Barrymore in particular, and a few others in general. Yes, the leads are all supposed to be teenagers, but I can assure these complainers that when this movie was made in 1936 - that's 82 years ago - only a devout Shakespearean would have realized that or given much consequence to it. The movie audiences of 1936 - and probably most of the movie audiences of today - almost certainly did not know that the leads were supposed to be about 16 and 14 respectively. In fact, the ages are not mentioned anywhere in the play, so even those two numbers are somewhat questionable facts. And I imagine that, even with Shakespeare, there would have been some complaints about showing a 14-year-old girl having sex with a 16-year-old-boy back then, and theaters might have been raided if they used actors of that age to play the roles. (Remember that as late as in 1962, they had to add about four years to the age of Lolita to even get LOLITA made, and they had to hire an actress who was 16 rather than 12 or they might have all been arrested!). One simply accepted the leads as the youngest members of their warring families, but not necessarily as teenagers. THAT'S A FACT! Yes, the stage lends distance to our acceptance of such characters' ages, and if you think Barrymore at 54 was old for Mercutio, please be advised that in 2016, that character was played on the London stage by Derek Jacobi, 78 at the time! Even Olivier was far too old (and actually looked it, even with blond hair) to play Hamlet in 1948, and he won the Academy Award for it. So, please, let's stop all this nonsense about age. If you'd prefer Leonard Whiting and Olivia Hussey, fine, but don't take it out on Howard and Shearer. As for those two, I've always loved Howard but feel that this is one of the least impressive film performances he ever gave, whereas I think Juliet may be Shearer's best film performance - and I think she looks a lot younger than her 34 years here anyway. She certainly acts it, which cannot be said for Howard. Barrymore, who was past his 40th birthday when he first did his famous Hamlet on the stage, is properly hammy here, but I couldn't understand much of him in his set speeches (like the Queen Mab one), and I always love Edna May Oliver, but also couldn't understand much of her dialogue. The actor I thought most natural of all, and who is hardly mentioned anywhere in these reviews, was Reginald Denny as Benvolio. Anyway, I find it a delightful film throughout but do wish they could have granted my dearest wish and had Claude Rains dub Andy Devine!

evening1 A beautifully filmed and costumed version of the Shakespeare tale of star-crossed lovers.Director George Cukor has made the story thoroughly accessible while retaining the sparkle of the original language, although, clearly, much dialog has been cut.While Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard do well in the central roles, they were far too old -- about 36 and 43, respectively -- to have been cast as teenagers. One is constantly aware that Juliet and her mother appear to be contemporaries! This version of the love-and-hate saga drives home the timeless themes at work in this Renaissance story -- that, try as one might to follow one's dream and be true to oneself, one can be thwarted by the ridiculous vagaries of fate at any moment. In other words, "the best laid plans of mice and men..." We see here a world in which parents profess to love their children but never really listen to them. It is their goals, and not their children's, that count in the end. We also witness the terrible consequences of living in a world in which one person's behavior is rigidly dictated by another's. (Had Romeo not killed Tybalt, how might this have all turned out?) One is left pondering whether times have really changed that much since the days of the Plague. Speaking of which, Cukor injects the disease into this film in the most dramatic of ways, trapping the messenger/monk in a house of pestilent death. An exquisitely heart-rending detail! I'm very glad I saw this. It renews my awe at the talent of the Bard.

MissSimonetta This adaptation of Romeo and Juliet has never been highly regarded. Not a great success commercially or critically at the time of its release, even now this version seems hated upon by many, mainly because the leads are much too old to be playing teenagers and the film is so covered in MGM gloss that it occasionally seems almost vulgar. However, I cannot bring myself to disown it entirely, and I do believe it has its merits.What saves this film from total mediocrity are the sets and costumes. The sets are just beautiful and the costumes, while sometimes a little ludicrous and over the top, are pleasing to the eye. The black-and-white cinematography adds a dreamy, romantic touch to the film.The performances are all over the map. Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer are adequate as the titular lovers, however, they lack passion. When Romeo learns he is banished, he does not cry out or moan, but reacts as though he's just lost a game of checkers. Shearer's Juliet is demure and sweet, but only occasionally does she really come alive. Basil Rathbone is excellent as Tybalt. While some find John Barrymore's Mercutio to be the highlight of the movie, he does absolutely nothing for me and gets on my nerves. Everyone else was passable.If you want to watch a great one or try to get students interested, then you're much better off with the 1968 film. Nevertheless, if you're curious, there's still some good things to come away with.