Loneliness, Love, and Italia

Tons of movies have been made about falling in love abroad. After all, nothing is more exciting than a new place, new experiences, and new people to enjoy them with. The 1955 David Lean film Summertime, sometimes retitled Summer Madness, is based on the play Time Time of the Cuckoo, written by Arthur Laurents. You can watch the film, segmented into parts, here on YouTube.

Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) is a happy-go-lucky middle-aged secretary from Akron who has finally gotten to go on the dream vacation of her life: a trip to Venice. Jane is an "independent type" and cruises Venice not with a lover but with a trusty movie camera to capture her experiences. . Despite the wonder and magic of Venice, Jane has no one to share her experiences with. However, Jane meets antique shop proprietor Renato de Rossi (Rossano Brazzi) in a cafe in the Piazza San Marco, a man who might change the course of her vacation and her life. The film truly captures what it is like to be a tourist in a foriegn country and is humorous but also romantic.

For some extra info on the film, you can look here at theauteurs.com or here, thanks to the Kate the Great fansite. Though it wasn't his most acclaimed film, David Lean said it was his favorite and it has gained some recognition through the Criterion Collection and some other sources. Filmsite.org ranked it one of the top films of 1955, which is a big honor considering other films that made the list include Rebel Without A Cause, The Seven Year Itch, Blackboard Jungle, East of Eden, and To Catch a Theif.

For some reviews of the film, you can get one from noripcord.com here. Another one comes from The Guardian in the UK. The BBC offers this review and this one comes from the Radio Times. For some images from the film, you can look here, thanks to Flickr. For a trailer of the film, just look below.