(Save Romeo & Juliet before someone let's them live!) On the R & J note, I think even a selective comparison of Franco Zefferelli's film with Bas Luhrmann's (?) recent 'modernized' version would be very useful for kids. When I was in 6th grade, a group of us put on a condensed version of the play, so the story was always familar to me--I couldn't imagine not knowing it. However, around the time the recent Romeo & Juliet came out, I met an 11 year-old girl who she was really excited about going to see the movie. She had seen the trailer and asked me about the part where Romeo is climbing up a wall to Juliet in the window--she thought Juliet had been kidnapped and he was coming to rescue her. I was shocked--she said she had never read the play--then her 14 year old brother chimed in that he had never read it either. I said, well, you must know the plot, its been retold in movies time and time again--the boy and girl from thw opposite side of the tracks, from rival groups--star-crossed lovers?... They looked at me blankly. Not even West Side Story? They'd never heard of it. Essentially, it occurred to me what a tragedy (no pun intended) it would be for these kids' first and perhaps only familiarity with Romeo & Juliet to come from the music video version. I myself enjoyed it a great deal for its *differences*, but I can't imagine not having something to compare that to--especially Claire Danes vs. Olivia Hussy (I think that's the name of Zefferelli's Juliet). I even remember a Wonder Years episode about Zefferelli's R & J being the fad movie for all of those kids to go see. Just some thoughts, Susan Vaill MFA Film Production Program University of Southern California School of Cinema-Television (213) 650-6199 ---- Online resources for film/TV studies may be found at ScreenSite http://www.tcf.ua.edu/screensite