Summertime (1955)

Directed by David Lean. Starring Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Gaetano Autiero, Isa Miranda, Darren McGavin, Mari Aldon, MacDonald Parke, Jane Rose.

Hepburn’s American spinster takes a vacation in Venice, falls for a married (but separated) antique shop owner (Brazzi). Pleasant but psychologically-shallow departure is a good showcase for Hepburn’s actorly arsenal, but the only one of her co-stars to meet her challenge is the scenic city itself, generously photographed with picaresque infatuation, every canal and piazza and cafè a sunlit pinup. It’s the location, more than the man or her observations of “free love”, which inspires her awakening, and if you’re not able to buy into that sort of elemental persuasion, the movie won’t work for you at all. A slight outing overall in David Lean’s canon—even when compared to his non-epics—but it amazingly earned him one of his seven Oscar nominations for Best Director. Originally an Arthur Laurents stage play (The Time of the Cuckoo); in the relatively minor role of a fellow vacationing American, Jane Rose also appeared in the Broadway production.

66/100