Trivia / Romeo and Juliet (1936)

• Box Office Bomb: Budget, $2 million. Box office, $962,000 (domestic), $2,075,000 (worldwide). Recorded loss, $922,000. While it received some critical praise and four Academy Award nominations, its lukewarm reception kept the Bard off-screen until Henry V (1944) eight years later.
• Creator Backlash: In an interview in 1970, George Cukor admitted that this was the one film of his that he would have liked to do over again.
• Creator Couple: Norma Shearer was married to producer Irving G. Thalberg.
• Dawson Casting: Leslie Howard, at 43, played Romeo and Juliet was played by 34-year-old Norma Shearer. In the play, Romeo is described simply as "young" while Juliet is specified to be 13. Even more geriatric was John Barrymore as Mercutio, who was fifty-four at the time, and due to his advanced alcoholism looked older than that. This was a knock on the movie at the time and has been ever since.
• Prop Recycling: John Barrymore's costume during his dueling scene was originally worn by him in Don Juan.
• What Could Have Been: The role of Romeo was originally offered to John Gielgud, who had just had a triumph in a stage production of the play in London in which he alternated the roles of Romeo and Mercutio with Laurence Olivier. Gielgud not only turned the part down (thinking that Shakespeare couldn't effectively be presented on screen), but was so disgusted by the finished film that he walked out of the theater after watching only fifteen minutes of it. Olivier also turned down the role. He would later narrate Romeo and Juliet (1968). Robert Donat, Fredric March and Robert Montgomery were also offered the role.

---