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.
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.