Maureen O'Hara has a perfect husband (Richard Todd) and two lovely children, a boy and a girl, in a splendid estate outside London, when she falls in love with an Italian (Rossano Brazzi) and decides to leave her family with him. He brings her to his fabulous estate by the Lago di Garda in Italy (with Gabriele d'Annunzio's working place in sight), where they lead a luxurious life in splendour, until we learn that he also has a child, a daughter (Olivia Hussey in her first part), whom he brings to the villa, shortly after Maureen O'Hara's two children have come there on their own, on a special mission to fetch her back to their father in England, entirely on their own initiative - we never learn that Richard Todd was ever informed about it. Now, what is wrong in all this?
That's what the battle of the Villa Fiorita is about, the children fighting hard to separate their parents from their lovers, and they will go to any length. This provides the drama of the film, which actually reaches rather critical heights. Rossano Brazzi, this great invincible lover and he-man, has to finally admit, that the children (especially Maureen's very determined daughter) won the moment they showed up at his house.
The film is beautifully made, with gorgeous music all the way by Mischa Spoliansky (Rossano plays a successful composer and pianist, and it's Spoliansky's music he is playing,) with splendid colours and cinematography, but the interesting part is the acting of the children. They take charge of the film and their parents and lead them right, in spite of their almost equally determined resistance. It's a great film and story for child psychology, and as all true and good parents know, children always know better.
