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David Lean's film version of the Arthur Laurents Broadway play, THE TIME OF THE CUCKOO, which starred Shirley Booth, is a shimmering and beautiful valentine set in Venice, but one with a touch of realism.

Katharine Hepburn stars as a mousy secretary from Akron who saves for years to have an adventure. She's a spunky and self-sufficient gal who secretly yearns to find love. She arrives in Venice and is immediately under the city's spell even though she's always running into a crass, older couple from Illinois. As she wanders the city, she's befriended by a tough little boy who is savvy in the way of tourists and life.

She spots a man (Rossano Brazzi) several times in San Marco plaza and one day wanders into his shop to buy a red goblet. She is stunned that the owner is the same man. He pursues her but her puritanical streak flares up when she discovers he is unhappily married.

She discovers all sorts of things about the owner of the pensione (Isa Miranda) and other guests (Darren McGavin, Mari Aldon) and even herself when she finds out what she's willing to settle for.

The ending at the train station is beautifully shot and justifiably famous. Indeed, the entire film is an eyeful of beauty, and Venice, with its canals, bridges, and ancient towers is breathtaking. The film also contains the famous scene where Hepburn falls into the canal. In Kevin Brownlow's biography of David Lean, the director admits that there were nets in the water to prevent Hepburn from sinking to the bottom of the canal which was full of garbage.

This is a stunningly beautiful film, a romance for adults. with a slim story that boasts great performances from Hepburn and Brazzi. The supporting cast is also very good, including Jane Rose and MacDonald Parke as the tourists, Jeremy Spencer as Brazzi's son, Andre Morell as the man on the train, and Gaetano Autiero as the street kid.

Although Shirley Booth had originated the role on Broadway, she was considered too old for the movie version. Indeed, Ingrid Bergman and Olivia de Havilland were early front runners for the role of Jane. Others who expressed interest included Susan Hayward, Joan Fontaine, Bette Davis, Gloria Swanson, Dorothy McGuire, Rita Hayworth, Lizabeth Scott, and Jane Wyman.

Hepburn won an Oscar nomination for her work.

"Summertime" is more of a mood piece than anything else. It captures the loneliness of a traveler in a foreign land, in this case a spinster who is hungry for love but too repressed to accept the love Rossano Brazzi offers. It has a bittersweet ending, appropriate for a thin story that sets the tone early on and never once makes us believe that Hepburn is going to find her true love in Venice.

The photography is gorgeous and must have had everyone heading for the nearest travel bureau for a tour of Italy when the film was released. The performances are all excellent--but the film belongs to Hepburn. She creates one of her most moving and truthful portraits--sensitively showing us what this woman feels as she watches others pairing off for affairs, alone and unable to really connect. The sexual mores of the 1950s permeate the film--the sexual revolution was just over the horizon but not yet evident.

One of Hepburn's most subtle, yet affecting performances. With David Lean's sensitive direction, the gorgeous photography and the evocative background music, "Summertime" will put you under the spell of its fragile romance. Easy to see why Brazzi was the ultimate continental charmer.

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 .

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.

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