Romeo and Juliet (1936 film) starred Katharine Cornell as Juliet, Basil Rathbone as Romeo, Brian Aherne as Mercutio, and Edith Evans as The Nurse. Rathbone is the only actor from the 1934 revival to appear in the film, albeit in the role of Tybalt rather than Romeo. On the stage Tybalt was played by nineteen year old Orson Welles. Thalberg's stated intention was "to make the production what Shakespeare would have wanted had he possessed the facilities of cinema." He went to great lengths to establish authenticity and the film's intellectual credentials: researchers were sent to Verona to take photographs for the designers; the paintings
Romeo and Juliet (1954 film) by a novelist. Critics responded to the film as a piece of cinema (its visuals were especially admired in Italy, where it was filmed) but not as a performance of Shakespeare's play: Robert Hatch in "The Nation" said "We had come to see a play... perhaps we should not complain that we were shown a sumptuous travelogue", and "Time"′s reviewer added that "Castellani's "Romeo and Juliet" is a fine film poem... Unfortunately it is not Shakespeare's poem!" Commercially response to the film was underwhelming. One journalist described it as the "unchallenged flop of the year". Romeo and Juliet (1954 film)