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Lunch » Tags » Movies » Reviews » Summertime - Criterion Collection

Summertime - Criterion Collection

2 Ratings: 3.0

Classics and Drama movie directed by David Lean

There was a time beforeLawrence of ArabiaandDoctor Zhivagowhen David Lean made smaller, more effortlessly picturesque movies, and this splendid Venetian travelogue and love story is one of them--the last, actually, before the epic onslaught started with … see full wiki

Tags: Movies, Drama Movies, Criterion Collection

Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Darren McGavin, Isa Miranda, Rossano Brazzi, Mari Aldon

Director: David Lean

Genre: Classics

1 review about Summertime - Criterion Collection

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The ultimate holiday romance...

Jan 19, 2010

by Byron_Kolln
posted in Movie Hype

Rating:

Of all director David Lean's films (which included such masterpieces as "Great Expectations", "Doctor Zhivago" and "Ryan's Daughter"), his personal favourite was reputed to have been 1955's SUMMERTIME, based on Arthur Laurents' play "The Time of the Cuckoo".

Katharine Hepburn is Jane Hudson, a middle-aged spinster secretary from Ohio, who finally manages to save enough money for her dream holiday to Venice. It's a city of love, something which the lonely Jane has had little experience with, until she meets antique shop owner Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi).

Shot on genuine locations in and around the fairytale canal city, SUMMERTIME is the perfect "travelogue" movie, containing one of Katharine Hepburn's most appealing, emotionally fragile performances. Her 'Jane' is quite a pathetic figure in many ways; lonely under her false mask of bravado and clearly frightened of love, yet miraculously returned to full life thanks to her romance with de Rossi. Rossano Brazzi's performance is likewise very fine; the previous year he'd filled a similar role in "Three Coins in the Fountain" (with Jean Peters playing another American secretary swayed by his continental charms while on a working holiday in Rome).

The screenplay was crafted by David Lean with H.E. Bates ("The Darling Buds of May"); and the story later returned to it's stage roots via the Broadway musical "Do I Hear a Waltz?", with music and lyrics by Richard Rodgers and Stephen Sondheim.

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