Romeo and Juliet on screen the story have also been filmed, most notably "West Side Story", Prokofiev's ballet "Romeo and Juliet" and "Romanoff and Juliet". Several theatrical films, such as "Shakespeare in Love" and "Romeo Must Die", consciously use elements of Shakespeare's plot. Producer Irving Thalberg pushed MGM for five years to make a "Romeo and Juliet", in the face of the studio's opposition: which stemmed from Louis B. Mayer's belief that the masses considered the Bard over their heads, and from the austerity forced on the studios by the depression. It was only when Jack L. Warner announced his intention to film Max Reinhardt's
Romeo and Juliet words, Shakespeare "invented the formula that the sexual becomes the erotic when crossed by the shadow of death". Of Shakespeare's works, "Romeo and Juliet" has generated the most—and the most varied—adaptations, including prose and verse narratives, drama, opera, orchestral and choral music, ballet, film, television, and painting. The word "Romeo" has even become synonymous with "male lover" in English. "Romeo and Juliet" was parodied in Shakespeare's own lifetime: Henry Porter's "Two Angry Women of Abingdon" (1598) and Thomas Dekker's "Blurt, Master Constable" (1607) both contain balcony scenes in which a virginal heroine engages in bawdy wordplay. The play directly influenced