The Taming of the Shrew | |
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Directed by | Franco Zeffirelli |
Screenplay by |
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Based on | The Taming of the Shrew by William Shakespeare |
Produced by | Elizabeth Taylor |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Oswald Morris |
Edited by | Peter Taylor |
Music by | Nino Rota |
Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates |
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Running time | 122 minutes |
Countries | Italy United States United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Budget | $4 million |
Box office | $8,000,000 (North America) $12,000,000 (worldwide) |
The Taming of the Shrew is a 1967 historical romance comedy film directed by Franco Zeffirelli, based on William Shakespeare's play about a courtship between two strong-willed people in 16th-century Italy. The film stars Elizabeth Taylor (who also produced) as Kate and Richard Burton as Petruchio, who were both nominated for BAFTA Awards for their acting. It features Cyril Cusack, Michael Hordern, Michael York, and Victor Spinetti in supporting roles.
The Taming of the Shrew premiered with a Royal Film Performance on 27 February 1967. At the 40th Academy Awards, it was nominated for Best Costume Design and Best Art Direction - Set Decoration. Burton was nominated for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Comedy or Musical, and the film was nominated for Best Motion Picture – Comedy or Musical. Burton and Taylor also received BAFTA nominations.
This was one of three Shakespearen film adaptations directed by Zeffirelli, followed by Romeo and Juliet in 1968, and Hamlet in 1990.
Baptista Minola is attempting to marry off his two daughters; however, he will marry off his youngest, Bianca only if someone will marry his eldest, Katherina. Katherina is an ill-tempered shrewish woman but a lusty young nobleman, Petruchio, takes on the challenge of taming and marrying her. A subplot involves the wooing of Bianca by several suitors including handsome Lucentio, foppish Hortensio, and elderly Gremio.
The film was originally intended to be a vehicle for Sophia Loren and Marcello Mastroianni. Taylor and Burton put over a million dollars into the production and, instead of a salary, took a percentage of profits. It was shot entirely at Dino De Laurentiis' studios in Rome.
Unlike her husband, Taylor had never performed Shakespeare before, and she was said to be very nervous prior to the beginning of the shoot. As she found her way into the role, and became more confident, she asked Franco Zeffirelli if she could shoot everything from the first day of shooting again, as she did not think her performance was up to scratch. Zefferilli assured her it was, but she was persistent, and on the last day of principal photography, the entire first day was shot again.
Rotislav Doboujinsky was Head of the film's Specialist Design Department. [4]
The film's premiere was the Royal Film Performance at the Odeon Leicester Square in London on February 27, 1967, attended by Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon. [1] [5] It had its US premiere at the Coronet Theatre in New York City on March 8, 1967, starting its regular run the following day. [1] [6]
The Taming of the Shrew grossed $8 million in North America, [7] earning $3,540,000 in theatrical rentals during 1967, [8] making it the 25th highest grossing picture of 1967. The film grossed $12 million worldwide. [9]
The film received positive reviews from modern critics. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of professional critics gave the film a positive review, based on 23 reviews with an average rating of 7.5/10. The website's critical consensus states: "It may not be reverent enough for purists, but this Taming of the Shrew is too funny – and fun – for the rest of us to resist." [10]
The film screenplay cuts most of the subplot of Lucentio and Bianca, and the entire Christopher Sly framing device. Other scenes are trimmed of dialogue, or have lines moved from one to another. The film also adds additional scenes, with little or no dialogue, focusing on Kate and Petruchio.
Taylor plays Kate's final, controversial speech without any obvious irony (such as Mary Pickford's wink in the 1929 film); however, her taming is apparently undercut by her quick exit from the banquet, which forces Burton's Petruchio to chase after her amid jeers from the other men. According to Harold Bloom's take on the play, Katherina is "advising women how to rule absolutely, while feigning obedience". [12]
Gian Franco Corsi Zeffirelli was an Italian stage and film director, producer, production designer and politician. He was one of the most significant opera and theatre directors of the post–World War II era, gaining both acclaim and notoriety for his lavish stagings of classical works, as well as his film adaptations of the same. A member of the Forza Italia party, he served as the Senator for Catania between 1994 and 2001.
The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1590 and 1592. The play begins with a framing device, often referred to as the induction, in which a mischievous nobleman tricks a drunken tinker named Christopher Sly into believing he is actually a nobleman himself. The nobleman then has the play performed for Sly's diversion.
Kiss Me, Kate is a musical with music and lyrics by Cole Porter and a book by Bella and Samuel Spewack. The story involves the production of a musical version of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew and the conflict on and off-stage between Fred Graham, the show's director, producer, and star, and his leading lady, his ex-wife Lilli Vanessi. A secondary romance concerns Lois Lane, the actress playing Bianca, and her gambler boyfriend, Bill, who runs afoul of some gangsters. The original production starred Alfred Drake, Patricia Morison, Lisa Kirk and Harold Lang.
Natasha Pyne is an English actress who starred in The Taming of the Shrew, The Breaking of Bumbo (1970) and Father, Dear Father (1973).
Petruchio is the male protagonist in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.
ShakespeaRe-Told is the umbrella title for a series of four television adaptations of William Shakespeare's plays broadcast on BBC One during November 2005. In a similar manner to the 2003 production of The Canterbury Tales, each play is adapted by a different writer, and relocated to the present day. The plays were produced in collaboration by BBC Northern Ireland and the central BBC drama department. In August 2006 the four films aired on BBC America.
The Woman's Prize, or the Tamer Tamed is a Jacobean comedy written by John Fletcher. It was first published in the first Beaumont and Fletcher folio of 1647, though it was written several decades earlier. There is no doubt that the play is the work of Fletcher alone; his highly distinctive and characteristic pattern of linguistic preferences is continuous through the text.
Kiss Me Kate is a 1953 Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer film adaptation of the 1948 Broadway musical of the same name.
Bianca Minola is a character in Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew (c.1590–1594).
Propeller is a theatre company which presents the plays of William Shakespeare in the UK and around the world. The director is Edward Hall.
"Tom, Dick or Harry" is a show tune from the Cole Porter musical, Kiss Me, Kate, introduced on Broadway on December 30, 1948 by Lisa Kirk ; Harold Lang ; Edwin Clay ; and Charles Wood. In the 1953 Hollywood film version, "Tom, Dick or Harry" was performed by Ann Miller, Tommy Rall, Bobby Van and Bob Fosse.
Catharine and Petruchio is a reworking of William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew by British playwright and actor David Garrick. It was written in 1754 and was performed far more often than the original The Shrew through the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The Taming of the Shrew is a 1929 American pre-Code comedy film directed by Sam Taylor and starring Mary Pickford and her husband Douglas Fairbanks. It was the first sound film adaptation of the Shakespearean play of the same name. The film was adapted by Taylor from William Shakespeare's play.
The Taming of the Shrew is a 1957 opera in four acts, five scenes by Vissarion Shebalin to a libretto by the Soviet musicologist Abram Akimovich Gozenpud, based on the comedy by William Shakespeare. Gozenpud utilized very little of Shakespeare's original text in his libretto, and completely eliminated many of the secondary characters and subplots from the play. His libretto does match the spirit of Shakespeare's play in its use of wit, the genuine passion of the story's lovers, and mixture of both lofty and coarse language.
There have been numerous on screen adaptations of Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew. The best-known cinematic adaptations are Sam Taylor's 1929 The Taming of the Shrew and Franco Zeffirelli's 1967 The Taming of the Shrew, both of which starred the most famous celebrity couples of their era; Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks in 1929 and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton in 1967. On television, perhaps the most significant adaptation is the 1980 BBC Television Shakespeare version, directed by Jonathan Miller and starring John Cleese and Sarah Badel.
The Taming of the Shrew in performance has had an uneven history. Popular in Shakespeare's day, the play fell out of favour during the seventeenth century, when it was replaced on the stage by John Lacy's Sauny the Scott. The original Shakespearean text was not performed at all during the eighteenth century, with David Garrick's adaptation Catharine and Petruchio dominating the stage. After over two hundred years without a performance, the play returned to the British stage in 1844, the last Shakespeare play restored to the repertory. However, it was only in the 1890s that the dominance of Catharine and Petruchio began to wane, and productions of The Shrew become more regular. Moving into the twentieth century, the play's popularity increased considerably, and it became one of Shakespeare's most frequently staged plays, with productions taking place all over the world. This trend has continued into the twenty-first century, with the play as popular now as it was when first written.
The Taming of the Shrew is a ballet in two acts choreographed by John Cranko to keyboard works by Domenico Scarlatti arranged and orchestrated by Kurt-Heinz Stolze. With scenery and costumes designed by Elizabeth Dalton, it was first presented as Der Widerspenstigen Zähmung by the Stuttgart Ballet at the Wṻrtembergische Staatstheater in Stuttgart on 16 March 1969.
The Taming of the Shrew is an opera in three acts by composer Vittorio Giannini. The work uses an English language libretto by Dorothy Fee and the composer which is based on William Shakespeare's play of the same name. The opera premiered at the Cincinnati Music Hall on January 31, 1953 in a concert performance starring Dorothy Short as Katharina, Robert Kircher as Petruchio, the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra, and conductor Thor Johnson. Considered Giannini's most popular work, it was one of three finalists named for the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 1953.
Vinegar Girl is a 2016 novel by American author Anne Tyler. It is the third book of Random House's "Hogarth Shakespeare" project, in which contemporary novelists retell stories from Shakespeare's plays. Interviewed by Ron Charles in The Washington Post, Tyler said " 'The Katherina in Shakespeare’s play is insane... She’s shrieking at Petruchio from the moment she meets him. And he’s not much better. So you know I had to tone them down. I’m sure that somebody is out there, saying, ‘This isn’t a shrew at all.’ "
Katherina (Kate) Minola is a fictional character in William Shakespeare's play The Taming of the Shrew. Referred to in the play as the titular "shrew" and the "ingenue", the play focuses on Katherina's taming by Petruchio into a more conventional role of a good wife. She is the elder daughter of Baptista Minola and the sister of Bianca Minola.