ROMEO AND JULIET

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1935, Page 20 (Supplement)

ROMEO AND JULIET

SHAKESPEARE FOR SCREEN. ADAPTION BY JOHN MASEFIELD. John Masefield, until recently England’s Poet Laureate, has transferred his activities to the sphere of talking pictures, and is now in Hollywood under contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, where he is adapting “Romeo and Juliet” for the screen. The adaption of Shakespeare’s immortal works has long been a subject for conjecture by studio executives. In its present form, the bard's work on the talking screen would find little favour with the more sophisticated audiences of the present day, and, as a consequence, would be a box-office failure. Yet, to mutilate his inspired writings to such an extent that they would be well-nigh unrecognisable would be a sin which even the lost financial success would hot condone.

'lt is in this regard that John Masefield will be a valuable adjunct to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer studios. Perhaps the world’s greatest 'living authority on Shakespeare, his screen adaption will in no way injure the beauty and ingenuity which has made the bard’s works live down the centuries.

Chosen for the name parts are Norma Shearer and Leslie Howard.