AllMovie

The English title of this Shakespeare adaptation is Juliet and Romeo, according the heroine top billing for the first time in history. Its Spanish title, evidently concocted to obscure its literary roots, was Los Amentes de Verona. Directed by costume-spectacle "regular" Riccardo Freda, the film stars Gerald Meynier and Rosemarie Dexter as Shakespeare's star-crossed lovers. Freda adapted the original text to make room for his usual stylistic grace notes -- not to mention his characteristic spurts of violence. Filmed in 1964, Giulietta e Romeo was distributed in the U.S. in 1968, most likely to cash in on the popularity of the recently released Franco Zeffirelli version.