‘Romeo and Juliet’ stars accusing ‘child pornography’ dismiss lawsuit

Second lawsuit served by the stars of Franco Zeffirelli’s 1968 film adaptation Romeo and Juliet was dismissed in a California courtroom Monday after a judge said she found no difference between Criterion’s Blu-ray re-release of the film in 2023 and older versions of the film that were the subject of a previous lawsuit that was dismissed last year.

In her new ruling that the latest claims are “meritless,” Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Holly J. Fujii rejected actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting’s claim that the 2023 re-release was digitally enhanced at such a high resolution, making the famous “bedroom scene,” filmed when Hussey was 16 and Whiting 17, a new misappropriation of their likeness not covered by the dismissal of the previous lawsuit. The scene in question shows Whiting and Hussey as Romeo and Juliet lying in bed together, speaking a few lines and kissing. Whiting’s bare buttocks and Hussey’s bare breasts, including her nipples and areolas, are briefly visible.

In a statement to the court signed in July, Hussey said she considered the scene to be “sexual abuse of minors” and “child pornography.” She also said she believed Paramount “engineered” the Blu-ray release “to embarrass (her) in retaliation” for her involvement in the previous lawsuit.

“Plaintiffs’ attempt to distinguish the 2023 edition from previous editions does not stand up to scrutiny,” Judge Fujii wrote in her ruling Monday. “Comparison of the 2023 release with previous versions does not show any significant visible improvements in the film, especially in the bedroom scene, to the naked eye. The lack of noticeable differences refutes plaintiffs’ contention.”

In her July statement to the court, Hussey said she never consented to being filmed nude while filming a film in Italy more than 50 years ago, and that it was only after Zeffirelli shouted “stop” that she was recorded in the state . strip while engaging in “frivolity” with Whiting that was intended to “relieve the tension during the filming of the scene.” She claims that she later gave Zeffirelli permission to use the images out of “frivolity after the performance” because she considered him an “artistic genius.” She says that after Zeffirelli’s death in June 2019, the permission did not extend to defendants Paramount Pictures, Criterion Collections and Janus Films.

“When I subsequently confirmed (the 2023 Blu-ray release) that this release had been enhanced to make these photographs look like images of lewd and lascivious behavior rather than an intimate love scene, I was furious and terribly embarrassed. Hussey wrote in her affidavit. “I knew that Franco Zeffirelli had passed away – much to my sadness, given my close relationship with him over the years – in mid-2019, so he could not give permission to publish these photographs of the remake of his masterpiece. “

In their successful motion to bring the latest lawsuit, lawyers for Paramount, Criterion and Janus called it “patently absurd” Hussey’s claim that the bedroom scene included in the film was largely shot after Zeffirelli shouted “cut.” “In the scene in question, two actors appear before the cameras and recite, verbatim, Shakespeare’s immortal text that accompanied the scene,” the lawyers wrote. They also criticized the theory that Criterion’s release exceeded the resolution of previous versions of the film, calling the claim “simply wrong.”

“In fact, the picture quality of the Criterion film is inferior to that of the 1968 theatrical release; lower resolution than the digitally restored 4K film that plaintiffs watched and applauded at a public film festival in 2016; and the same resolution as a film that has been in wide television and digital release since 2007 or earlier,” the lawyers wrote. “None of Plaintiffs’ alleged attempts to rewrite what happened on the set in 1967, or how they have behaved since then, saves this lawsuit from the fate of the previous lawsuit.”

Asked about this allegation after the hearing, Hussey’s lawyer William Romaine said: Rolling Stone that his client was more concerned about the alleged manipulation of the original film. “If you look at the original, the photograph of her breasts is quite specific and understandable. In the Criterion release the way they did the lighting, it’s faked, it’s amazing, it’s like someone is pointing a spotlight right at her nipple, like someone is really trying to highlight her breasts. When she saw it, she thought it was really offensive. She felt that this made the entire film seem obscene. She felt that if Zeffirelli had been alive, he would never have allowed this to happen.” Romaine said he plans to encourage his clients to appeal the firings. “We believe the court was wrong,” he said.

In May 2023, another judge ruled to dismiss the first lawsuit filed by Hussey and Whiting in 2022. The actors’ appeal against this decision was dismissed by the Court of Appeal on April 15, 2024.

“Plaintiffs have provided no authority to show that the film here could be considered sufficiently sexual as a matter of law to be found definitively illegal,” the previous judge, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Alison McKenzie, wrote in her letter. decision to dismiss the first lawsuit last year. “Plaintiffs’ arguments on this issue are limited to cherry-picked language from federal and state laws without providing any authority regarding the interpretation or application of those statutory provisions to purported works of artistic merit, such as the award-winning film at issue herein. »

In her decision, McKenzie cited appellate court precedent that says child pornography is “particularly abhorrent” but “not all images of naked children are pornographic.”

Paramount’s lawyers had no comment following Monday’s ruling.