Apart from the title theme " Summertime in Venice ", I have never managed to find the rest of the music on a cd or LP. Katharine Hepburn's sensitive portrayal of the lonely heroine and Jack Hildyard's glorious Technicolor photography make Summertime an endearing and visually enchanting film. Soon Renato woos her but the needy Jane is afraid to love. I remember thinking at the time that no matter how many photos I took, I would never be able to capture its essence--the twisting little alleys shielded by towering brick walls, the staggeringly lovely architecture scattered through piazzas, the feel of walking on water as gondolas drift by below you--Venice is about life, living, love. Metacritic Reviews. (2) What is the means of support of the the Hepburn character? Review by Jonathan White ★★★★½ 13. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Fabulously photographed by the peerless Jack Hildyard, and lovely entertainment for wallowers of sudsy romance stories. Hepburn walks around the beautiful city with her movie camera and captures the spectacle of it all. The seductiveness of Venice makes an inevitability of the love affair with married Rossano Brazzi (also giving a wonderful, feeling performance) - whose face, when he first appears sitting behind Jane and checks her out from ankle to nape at a café in the vibrant Piazza San Marco, is a superb, classic sketch of the practiced Italian stud. Summertime. I’m a big fan of The Bridge on the River Kwai and Lawrence of Arabia so I wanted to check out more of David Leans filmography. Katharine Hepburn shines as an American spinster vacationing in Rome, where she quickly falls for the very suave, very married Rossano Brazzi. VAT no 918 5617 01, Bauer Consumer Media Ltd are authorised and regulated by the FCA(Ref No. | *** from ****. Also her private life during the filming mirrored the quiet desparation of the heroine, due to personal circumstances. Selecting just one favourite David Lean film is like choosing which child to save. A lonely American woman travels to Venice, Italy, for her long-awaited dream vacation - only to find herself embarking on a … Bauer Media Group consists of: Bauer Consumer Media Ltd, Company number: 01176085, Bauer Radio Ltd, Company Number: 1394141, Registered Office: Media House, Peterborough Business Park, Lynch Wood, Peterborough, PE2 6EA H Bauer Publishing,Company Number: LP003328, Registered Office: Academic House, 24-28 Oval Road, London, NW1 7DT.All registered in England and Wales. Jane soon discovers that even in a town as marvelous and riveting as Venice , going it alone can still leave one feeling unfortunately alone . Lengthy travelogue with a built-in tearjerker-trap does showcase nearly all of Hepburn's strengths as an actress; she is sometimes annoying, yet wistful, romantic, dreamy-eyed. Summertime adalah sebuah film romansa Amerika/Inggris tahun 1955 garapan David Lean. Okay, the bad things first: Kate orates and emotes throughout most of this movie and, until she dresses up in an evening gown, looks about 65 years old (she was only 48 when she made this movie). Renato is something of a scumbag, only really wanting to sleep with her, but she knows that their relationship is something that will last scant days. Never-married , likable middle-aged Jane is a self-described "independent type" who's content , or so she claims , to go it mostly solitary , wielding her movie camera throughout the city when she meets a antiques merchant (Rossano Brazzi) . (3) How did the non-plot make it as a stage play before being filmed by David Lean without the sumptuous Venetian scenery? She is alone on a vacation in Venice - she was alone before she left, and she has, for the most part, always been alone. User Ratings It didn't seem possible to me that all that could ever be effectively captured on film. She was flighty and skittish, hardly a beauty -- I just didn't see the romance as credible. DVD Summertime is released in the UK by Second Sight. Not Much to This David Lean Travelogue Film. It, too, deals delicately with an adulterous temptation, but with considerably more joy and somewhat less guilt (plus, woo hoo, some actual sex) than the decent, agonised, stiff-upper-lipped British protagonists of the earlier film enjoy. Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for Summertime (1955) Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi [All Region, All Region] at Amazon.com. The plot is good it’s a very simple but entertaining story. Summertime (1955) Review. | Not one of his best but as the personal favourite of director David Lean's outstanding back catalogue, this is well worth a look. It is also one of Katherine Hepburn's lovely performances. One of the many "spinster" roles Katharine Hepburn played throughout the 1950s, and one of the best. At one point, Renato, who has already lied to Hepburn a couple of times on important matters, tells her that she'll never have another chance at this. Read the latest news, features and the Empire review of the film. David Lean's film version of the Arthur Laurents Broadway play, THE TIME OF THE CUCKOO, which starred Shirley Booth, is a shimmering and beautiful valentine set in Venice, but one with a touch of realism. Was Brazzi really feeling lonely and couldn't find a pretty young Italian or tourist girl (he's quite a handsome fellow, you know) and was Hepburn the best he could get? The mood is leisurly, the pace deliberate, and the look of Venice is shimmering and magical. Jane is a middle-age single and lonely woman that have saved money for her dream trip. It didn't really happen the way she will tell it, but who's to know? The weather was obviously anticyclonic and perfect when they shot the film and the colours are unbeatable. Unfortunately, she can hardly keep the images of happy couples away from her lens. Dvd | She meets people around the city, but they are all paired off, leaving her alone with her camera. 3 out of 5 stars. Genres: Romance, Drama. She’s also a mistress of comic timing, including taking a memorable tumble into a Venetian canal (which gave her an eye infection that plagued her for the rest of her life). She even captures a pick up. Brief Encounter, Lawrence Of Arabia and Great Expectations made up three of the nation’s Top Five when the BFI compiled Britain’s 100 Favourite Films Of The 20th Century. I have never seen a city filmed so beautifully as Venice in this film. Va bene. How does she get the time, and where does she get the money, for an open-ended stay in Venice? The Venice of "Summertime," in the Piazza San Marco, is indeed unique, I live in Venice.. And all I can say is that it's delightful, Wonderful Venice with a charming and perceptible Katherine Hepburn. Why does everyone keep calling Hepburn signorina, even when she's with Brazzi? I love the ending most of all, how Hepburn is still constructing this fantasy. The film is a musical adaptation of the 1940 film, The Shop Around the Corner, directed by Ernst Lubitsch, and starring James Stewart, Margaret Sullavan, and Frank Morgan, and written by Miklós László based on his 1937 play Parfumerie. To be on vacation alone is a sort of tragedy. Summertime (released in the UK as Summer Madness) is a 1955 British-American Technicolor romance film directed by David Lean and starring Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Darren McGavin, and Isa Miranda. Bridge On The River Kwai, Doctor Zhivago and Oliver Twist also showed strongly. She succeeds in doing a lot with a nothing role, and earned her sixth Academy Award nomination for her efforts. "Summertime" is more of a mood piece than anything else. Witness her 1955 Oscar-nominated performance in this David Lean film. Video Taken from a good print of the film, the transfer is reasonably good, but shows some minor signs of age and wear. I didn’t go into this with the highest expectations but I liked this film a lot more than I expected to. "Summertime" is a deceptive film directed by David Lean and with Katharine Hepburn. The screenplay by Lean and H.E. Essentially a well-made bodice ripper for the middle-aged set. It has a bittersweet ending, appropriate for a thin story that sets the tone early on and never once makes us believe that Hepburn is going to find her true love in Venice. Awards She's trapped in an idyllic romance until that's realised of the reality . I've seen this movie quite a few times on televison, but during the 2003 60th Venice Film Festival I had the opportunity to see it on a big, big screen in a brand new copy. Why did everyone keep calling Hepburn signorina? David Lean's moving, heart-stoppingly gorgeous companion piece to Brief Encounter combines Katharine Hepburn's finest, most human performance with stunning cinematography and a dizzying, romantic screenplay touched with just the right amount of worldly bitterness. Synopsis ... One of those films I would love to step inside and walk around for awhile. Notions like the repressed American spinster’s awakening in the hands of the appreciative Italian lover may be as dated as the self-denial of Brief Encounter. their ill-fated love affair makes for a freshly endearing film. Summertime, American film drama, released in 1955, featuring Katharine Hepburn in a timeless love story set in Venice.. Director David Lean’s simple film—adapted from the play The Time of the Cuckoo by Arthur Laurents—centres on a spinster (played by Hepburn) who is taking her dream trip to Venice, accompanied only by her omnipresent movie camera. Wow, this film is just a great time! It also seems he wanted to keep Hepburn but as a mistress, an arrangement she clearly would have refused, but this is never discussed during the abrupt ending. Hepburn is either too old and unattractive or Brazzi to young and refined (even though he's not very prosperous, we later find out) to make their relationship in this film believable. Summertime. Katharine Hepburn was 48 when she made this but she never looked more radiant than here, photographed in colour by Jack Hildyard, as Jane Hudson, an American spinster let loose in Venice and falling for a suave, middle-aged and inevitably married man played by Hollywood's idea of the only suave, middle-aged Italian male on the planet at the time, Rossano Brazzi. He goes for her quickly, and though she's nervous, she falls for him as quickly. The picture deals with a attractive spinster secretary (Katherine Hepburn) from Ohio who goes to holiday and has ultimately made it to Venice , for her long-awaited dream . During the night, she goes to a café and an Italian helps her to call the waiter. The enormous romance of Venice does little but remind her of what she probably will never have. Summertime (1955): Review, Trailer, Photos. Bates is based on the play The Time of … Hepburn and Venice battle it out for star billing. I found it on DVD ( Criterion ) but if the picture quality is perfect, there are no subtitles, other language tracks or bonus features, all of which is a great shame considering the film is so beautiful. When she arrives home, she'll be able to tell people about her wonderful trip to Venice. Jane feels sort of uncomfortable for being alone and on the next day, she sees a red glass goblet in the window of an antique store. Part of the 30 Days in May challenge, 2014 edition. Was Hepburn supposed to be a virgin? But as in that earlier film, the art, craft and emotion have aged beautifully. Much as Hepburn did. It has another layer. Miss Jane Hudson from Akron, Ohio, is an independent woman of a certain age (Hepburn was 48 at the time) who has saved for years to visit Europe, soak up culture, buy cheaper stuff and, just perhaps, look for a mysterious something else in life. This film has some things in common with Lean's other doomed-from-the start romantic film "Brief Encounter", with trains as a motif. Ms. Hepburn portrayed the many stages of love so convincingly that it is difficult to remember it's just a movie. Katharine Hepburn isn't the most overrated movie actress, and she certainly wasn't the worst. This movie is so entertaining, I had a smile on my face the entire time. Jane recognizes Renato from the previous night and becomes clumsy. ... Review by Nicole Passage. Als je iets koopt via deze pagina, dan steun je hiermee MovieMeter. BTW, it seems things have changed plenty since 1955 given that today a woman in Venice I don't think would feel safe walking the city alone, specially at night. On the arrival, she immediately befriends the owner of the boarding house Signora Fiorini (Isa Miranda). One of the finest love stories I've ever seen. I never did find out. 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