A lawsuit over a nude scene in the 1968 film Romeo and Juliet is protected by the First Amendment, a judge has ruled. In January, it had been reported that the stars of the movie, Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, filed a lawsuit against Paramount because of a scene that featured the two of them nude in a bedroom together. At the time of filming, Hussey was 15 and Whiting was 16, and they argued in their lawsuit that they couldn't have legally consented to appearing nude on film. The complaint alleged that director Franco Zeffirelli and the studio had coerced the teen actors into filming the scene, and for mental anguish and negative impacts to their careers, the two wanted no less than $500 million.
On Thursday, per Variety, it was reported that Judge Alison Mackenzie has granted Paramount's motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The studio had sought to have the suit tossed under California's anti-SLAPP statute. The judge also ruled that the film is protected by the First Amendment and that the statute of limitations applies to the allegations of child sex abuse.
“Plaintiffs have not put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal,” Mackenzie said. “Plaintiffs’ argument on the subject is limited to cherry-picked language from federal and state statutes without offering 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 here.”
The legal battle may not be over yet. Attorney Solomon Gresen, speaking on behalf of Hussey and Whiting, said that the plan is to file a separate lawsuit in federal court. Instead of focusing on the original theatrical release in 1968, this new lawsuit will point to the recent release of the film on a Criterion Collection DVD. Because the release features a new 4K restoration of Romeo and Juliet, Gresen says this would restart the statute of limitations.
“Children cannot consent to use of these images... They’re profiting off these images without consent," the lawyer said.
Romeo and Juliet: The Legal Battle Continues
While director Franco Zeffirelli has since passed away, the filmmaker's son, Pippo Zeffirelli, was very critical of the lawsuit. After it was filed, the younger Zeffirelli said that the controversial scene was "far from pornographic," noting how his father had spoken out against pornography often when he was around.
“It is embarrassing to hear that today, 55 years after filming, two elderly actors who owe their notoriety essentially to this film wake up to declare that they have suffered an abuse that has caused them years of anxiety and emotional discomfort," he told the Guardian. "These were very young naive children in the ’60s who had no understanding of what was about to hit them. All of a sudden they were famous at a level they never expected, and in addition they were violated in a way they didn’t know how to deal with.”
The movie was a big hit when it was first released. With a budget of around $850,000, it had grossed nearly $39 million. Hussey and Whiting would also both win Golden Globes for their performances in the film, while Zeffirelli and the film were also respectively nominated for Best Director and Best Picture at the Academy Awards.