Summertime

This gets complicated. I am reviewing this film after Being Julia, which I saw a few days later, but in the reverse order of a blog you’ll be reading it after anyway. It has just struck me that both films star 47-year-old redheads who retain plenty of sex appeal, and who find men to re-charge their batteries through desire reciprocated. Here Katharine Hepburn is a primly yearning spinster from Akron, whose European tour of a lifetime lands her in Venice, where she attracts the attention of Rossano Brazzi on the Plaza San Marco. A complicated dalliance ensues, a Venetian love affair in more ways than one, till that inevitable train pulls out of the station. This film marks a turning point in David Lean’s career, on the way from the intimacy of Brief Encounter to the spectacle of Doctor Zhivago, with Venice itself sharing the lead role. (1955, dvd, r.) *7*