Summertime

Jane Hudson (Katherine Hepburn), a middle-aged American school teacher, arrives in Venice, fulfilling a lifelong dream… On her first evening, she has an encounter with Mauro, an enterprising little street child, who becomes her unofficial escort… But in the evening, while seating in a crowded café, she sees a handsome man in a gray flannel suit... Her first instinctive reaction was to oppose, pay the bill, escape, and keep out of sight...

The next evening, she sits alone to take a drink in the Piazza San Marco, but with a wandering eye… As the violins begin playing 'Summertime in Venice', Jane would turn away in a heart beat to see Renato passing by… To hide her anxiousness, she inclines the chair next to her, pretending that she is expecting a company... Jane has come to Venice to find a handsome, unmarried hero of her dreams... But she is furious and resentful... She really can't understand what she is doing...

The most advantageous thing about David Lean's 'Summertime' is its sensitive portrait of the loneliness that holds back the fancy secretary, a desperately single heroine whose search for romance and adventure is prevented less by cultural differences than by her own feeling defenses...

Hepburn is a pleasant tourist with great magnetism... Rossano Brazzi is too powerful, tempting and charming as Renato, the Venetian who couldn't catch a fallen white gardenia in one of the canals of his town

I have watched this film tens of times. I have never seen a city filmed so beautifully as Venice in this film. The photography is smooth, and travelling shots just perfect. The sights, the sounds and above all the haunting music of the film are just something else. Apart from the title theme " Summertime in Venice ", I have never managed to find the rest of the music on a cd or LP. The weather was obviously anticyclonic and perfect when they shot the film and the colours are unbeatable. 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.

The plot is thin, Hepburn's reactions of a frustrated spinster are annoying at times and the film's end is unsatisfying either way. But these negative points will not stop me from watching again and again this film. It is pure 1950's gold. I wonder whether Venice today has

the same charm as in the film .............

On the familiar ground of brief and intense romance that he worked with so brilliantly in Brief Encounter, David Lean fashions another tale of fleeting romance in Summertime with Katherine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi.

I have to give Lean credit for one thing that Summertime does better than most other films. I found it impossible to believe that Summertime originated from a one act, one scene play The Time of the Cuckoo which takes place on the front patio of the hotel where Hepburn is staying. The play ran 263 performances during the Broadway 1952-1953 season and netted a Tony Award for Shirley Booth.

Lean makes the city of Venice the real star here in the same way Rome was in Three Coins in a Fountain and Roman Holiday. I love the way Lean photographed the city, it's absolutely first rate.

Summertime is a simple tale of forty something unmarried woman Katherine Hepburn from Akron, Ohhio finding real romance for the first time on a long planned trip to Venice. Sad though, that for reasons quite beyond her control it can't last.

Still with The African Queen, The Rainmaker, and her many films with Spencer Tracy at this time, Kate the great was proving love wasn't just for the young.

For the many fans of Katherine Hepburn and the city of Venice.

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 . 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) . Jane soon discovers that even in a town as marvelous and riveting as Venice , going it alone can still leave one feeling unfortunately alone . She's trapped in an idyllic romance until that's realised of the reality . She also befriends a helpful beggar boy who pursues her everywhere .

The film plot is plain and simple but abounds the surprises . The various highlights movie include : the spectacular downfall of Hepburn into the Venice canal or when the lovers watch how the flower dropped to water is going away and of course the sensitive and exciting final in the train and station . Impressive and breathtaking cinematography by Jack Hyldyard ; David Lean , in fact , had only used four photographers throughout his career . The other cameramen have been Guy Green , Ronald Neame and Freddie Young , everybody notorious color specialists . Katherine Hepburn's interpretation is top notch , she's sympathetic , romantic , attractive , memorable but also sad and vulnerable . Rossano Brazzi as a Latin lover is awesome . The support cast although relatively known -Darren McGavin, Isa Miranda , Marie Aldon- is very secondary , the film is principally interpreted by the excellent pair : Hepburn and Brazzi . Production set by Vincent Korda is spectacular , Korda is considered the greatest British designer . The motion picture is well directed by David Lean , author of many cinema classics . The picture will appeal to romantic movies fans . Rating : Above average . Well worth seeing .

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.

Hepburn is, of course, magnificent in the part; every gesture betrays a life-time of disappointment in love, a young girl trapped in a middle-aged woman's body anxious to break free but scared to do so. Her co-star, of course, isn't really Brazzi but Venice and you're never sure what it is that brings out the best in her, the city or the man. Hildyard's cinematography does Venice proud; few films have ever used a ___location as sensuously as this one does and a lesser actress would have let it get the better of her. The plot, of course, has been done to death and as romances go, this is formulaic stuff, (and the comedy is too broad; comedy was never Lean's forte), but Hepburn, Venice and, to a lesser extent, the handsome Brazzi weave their own spell and you're hooked.