Romeo and Juliet

I’m hardly going to criticise or even describe the plot. Well established as one of the greatest stories ever told and this 1968 film version by Franco Zeffirelli is one of its best tellings. It stars the lovely Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting who were 16 and 17 when the film was made. The youth of the leads is one of its best features. In the play Juliet and Romeo are 14 and 15 and yet they are mostly portrayed by actors at least in their twenties with a resulting loss of authenticity, but more importantly of youthful innocence and energy, which is so evident here. The balcony scene is an absolute joy to behold and comes to life as I have never seen it before.

As a complete aside, this film reminded me of a movie I saw many years ago. I could not remember much of it, except that in the movie two of the characters go to see this film version of Romeo and Juliet. Through the miracle of IMDB I managed to figure out that the movie is called “Follow Me!”, although to confuse matters further it was also released as “The Public Eye”. It starred Mia Farrow and Topol and is set in London during the 1960s. Sadly, as I would very much like to see it again, it is not yet available on DVD. Let us hope it gets released, but in the meantime there are a few snippets posted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8wj-f5vCqQ) which brought back many further memories for me.