Summertime (1955)

Synopsis:

American spinster Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn, The African Queen) uses all her savings to take a trip to Venice, Italy. While touring the city’s biggest attractions, Jane, who has long given up on the idea of ever finding love, unexpectedly falls in love with a debonair Italian businessman (Rossano Brazzi, South Pacific).

Reaction & Thoughts:

“When in Italy, you should meet Italians.”

David Lean’s adaptation of Arthur Laurents’s play, The Time of the Cuckoo, is an ode to the city of Venice. Lean captures the moods, the people, the sounds, the colors of the city like no one before or after. Lean takes full advantage of the beautiful locales — gorgeously shot in Technicolor by Jack Hildyard (The Bridge on the River Kwai) — and for that reason alone, Venice becomes a character as important as the human characters.

Summertime is very much in the vein of Lean’s 1945 classic Brief Encounter, another small-scale romantic drama that benefited from the director’s keen eye for small details. Lean co-wrote the script with H.E. Bates (Donald Ogden Stewart, The Philadelphia Story, wrote additional dialogue). Even though these men worked hard to open up the play, they kept the essence of Laurents’s fine work intact.

In retrospective, it’s clear that Summertime announced a new era of filmmaking for director Lean. After this movie, Lean swore never to go back to the sound stages. That explains why he spent the remainder of his career making outdoorsy films. Film scholars can’t agree on which period was better, the one that ended with studio-bound Hobson’s Choice (1954), or the one that began with open-air Summertime.

There isn’t much plot here, and the story isn’t that original, so it’s up to Lean and star Katharine Hepburn to make it work. Lean and Hepburn collaborated closely to make every scene count. As a result, the film is far more complex than expected. Everything works like clockwork: story, performances, visuals, etc.

Hepburn is simply sensational — it’s one of her very best performances (she received an Oscar nomination). The actress has a tendency to look aloof, but Lean gets her to loosen up and the result is a moving, realistic portrait of a sad woman who seems to have found happiness at last. Rossano Brazzi is perfect as Hepburn’s love interest. Non-professional actor Gaetano Autiero is great as the little street hustler Mauro.

Conclusions & Final Thoughts:

Summertime holds a special place in my heart because it inspired me to travel to Venice — this is a magical movie about a magical city. It’s also one of cinema’s best romantic movies — Summertime is in fact director David Lean’s favorite of his own movies. A little gem. The cast also includes Darren McGavin (A Christmas Story) and Isa Miranda (The Night Porter). Color, 100 minutes, Not Rated.

Theatrical Trailer: