LOS ANGELES — A Los Angeles Superior Court decide sided with Paramount Pictures in a toddler intercourse abuse lawsuit tied to a nude scene within the 1968 movie “Romeo and Juliet.”
Judge Alison Mackenzie issued a tentative ruling that dismisses the lawsuit, writing that Paramount’s actions in making the movie are “protected activity” below the First Amendment, in keeping with courtroom paperwork reviewed by the L.A. Times.
The lawsuit was initially filed in December by Leonard Whiting, who performed Romeo Montague when he was 16, and Olivia Hussey, who performed Juliet Capulet when she was 15, within the adaptation of the William Shakespeare traditional. Directed by Italian filmmaker Franco Zeffirelli, the movie features a controversial bed room scene through which Whiting’s naked buttocks and Hussey’s naked breasts are seen.
Whiting and Hussey, who’re each now 72, mentioned they have been coerced into filming the nude scene after Zeffirelli initially assured them that “there would be no nudity filmed or exhibited, and that [they] would be wearing flesh colored undergarments during the bedroom/love scene.” They mentioned Zeffirelli advised them “they must act in the nude or the Picture would fail,” and threatened “they would never work again in any profession, let alone Hollywood” in the event that they didn’t comply.
The lawsuit accused the studio big of sexual harassment, negligence, intentional tort, fraud, appropriation of title and likeness, intentional infliction of emotional misery, unfair enterprise practices and little one sexual abuse and sought $500 million in damages.
However, Mackenzie wrote late final week that the plaintiffs didn’t do sufficient to point out that the scene itself was “sufficiently sexually suggestive” to be thought-about unlawful. During the listening to, Mackenzie had known as the allegations a “gross mischaracterization” of the scene, in keeping with the Hollywood Reporter.
Solomon Gresen, an lawyer for Whiting and Hussey, advised the L.A. Times that he argued in courtroom that merely taking pictures a nude scene with minors with the intent of promoting the content material is in itself unlawful below federal regulation.
“The First Amendment does not protect the conduct of exhibiting nudity of minors for commercial sale,” Gresen mentioned, calling the content material little one pornography.
Mackenzie disagreed in her ruling by citing earlier circumstances that discovered that “not all nude pictures of children are child pornography” if the photographs are “in the proper context.” To be little one porn, the photographs would wish to comprise “lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area,” she wrote.
The go well with was additionally thrown out for procedural causes. According to the courtroom, the plaintiffs did not file a “certificate of merit,” which is a letter obtained from a licensed psychological well being practitioner, who should evaluate the case. The doc is required below California regulation when somebody older than 40 sues in a toddler intercourse abuse case.
Attorneys for Paramount declined to remark.
Source: www.bostonherald.com”