Browne, George: Our movie memories 1928–1934
Clip 1: Romeo and Juliet – Browne family style
2 min 41 sec
Taken from the home movie Browne, George: Our movie memories 1928–1934 (1928)
Original title classification not rated – this clip chosen to be G
Availability of the complete title
Please note: this clip is silent
Curator’s clip description
Romeo slays Tybalt in a street fight, but then is banished. Juliet laments at the news and seeks the Friar Lawrence’s help. The final tragedy unfolds as Juliet lies ‘dead’ only to be discovered by a distraught Romeo who kills himself in grief; the last scene shows Juliet melodramatically taking her own life.
Curator’s notes
The intertitles at the beginning of this Romeo and Juliet sequence indicate the Browne family staged this sequence in 1929. The intertitles warn ‘if you know the story, you’re OK. If you don’t, just try and sort it out for yourself’. The family enact the complete story in a seven-minute sequence, complete with balcony scene and filmed in a number of backyard locations consisting of around ten separate scenes.
In the scenes in Juliet’s garden in this clip, the perforations in between the 9.5 mm film frames can briefly be seen. 9.5 mm film has single perforations in the centre of each pair of frames, rather than perforations along one edge of the frame, allowing for more space for the picture.
The clip selected here tells the second half of the ill-fated Romeo and Juliet story with Juliet played by a boy in drag.
Lauren Williams, curator
