L'amour à l'italienne

Yes, I agree that Suzanne Pleshette and Troy Donahue are not exactly Katherine Hepburn and Lawrence Olivier in this film, but their "chemistry," a beautiful Italian setting, glorious fashion and the overall romantic "intrigue" more than make up for that. In the early 1960's, Troy Donahue was the ultimate in "eye candy" for us teenage girls (and older women, too, I'm sure). I have thought for years that I was surely the only 13-year old girl who sat in a darkened theater so TOTALLY "transported" for several hours by the romance in this film, but apparently I was not. I listen to an "oldies" radio station in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area and I cannot believe how MANY times other listeners request that the incredibly romantic "Al Di La" from the dimly-lit-romantic-restaurant-scene be played. Hooray for a day when sex was something seriously contemplated and not something graphically displayed like today!

Prudence Bell (Suzanne Pleshette) travels to Italy to discover adventure and finds Don Porter (Troy Donahue) and love. As they explore the areas around Rome, viewers are treated to some idyllic scenery. Their relationship has its ups and downs, especially when Don's former flame, played by Angie Dickinson, reenters his life.

Through it all, the song "Al di la" is featured, and the film's grade deserves two bumps just for that. It may be the perfect accompaniment to a love story set in Italy. Even Al Hirt, who appears as a surprisingly engaging trumpeter in the film, plays a jazz rendition.

This itinerant love story with a peripatetic plot loses focus on occasion, but it always come back to Prudence, where it belongs. Pleshette's beautiful quirkiness feels grounded in true love. No surprise, then, that Pleshette and Donahue would marry later.

An uncreative ending deserves the loss of one grade point. But it is difficult to be very disappointed in a film that features so much beauty.

This sudsy, corn-filled romance would have been affectionately known as a 'woman's picture' back in 1962 when it was made. Today we would call it a 'chick-flic'. After giving up the western, (and he made a handful of very good ones), Delmer Daves turned to churning out some very glossy love stories, usually taken from best-selling novels of variable quality and, more often than not, starring the hottest property of the day, Troy Donahue. Donahue was blonde and beautiful and he could even act after a fashion in that kind of stiff American manner that belonged to an altogether different age; perhaps that is why his career was so short-lived.

Here he's an American artist living in Rome and the girl that falls for him was newcomer Suzanne Pleshette who has left American in search of adventure while clinging to her virtue. If for nothing else we should be eternally grateful for any film that gives us Pleshette who was smart, sexy and beautiful beyond her years but whose career never went anywhere either. There is also an older man in the mix as well, a charming Italian played by ... yes, you guessed it, Rossano Brazzi, (were all middle-aged Italian men like Brazzi?), and a bitch played by Angie Dickinson. (Pleshette acts her off the screen). But the real star of the movie is Italy, photographed in all its Technicolor, travelogue glory pushing the story very much into the background. The Italian tourist board should still be paying Daves royalties.

There is a time for most people when, as children, they become aware.  It's the time when suddenly, the world opens up and you see yourself fitting in.  Things you took for granted or never noticed over night become worth investigating.  You become aware of not only your surroundings, but the time in which you find yourself.  Just like that things get emblazoned on your brain like never before.  For me, that happened in 1960.  It has always been a special year.  It was the year I discovered girls.  It was the year art had new meaning for me.  It was the year I learned to type and it was the year I realized movies would be a part of my life forever.

When I watch films from 1960 they bring back that connection to becoming aware.  They aren't all my favorite films, but it doesn't matter.  When I see pretty much any film from the early 60s I get a jolt.  Even if I've never seen the film before, movies that were made in the early 1960s, somehow trigger a response.  It's a combination of the hair styles, the fashion, automobiles, the film stock and lighting use of that time, the cast, acting and scoring style.  Films from 1960 through about 1962 have this in spades, including "Rome Adventure."

Suzanne Pleshette and Troy Donohue just radiate early 60s like nobody's business, as does Max Steiner's score, the cinemascope cinematography and the dialog.  Even watching the credits in combo with Steiner's music swept me back to that era.  In this regard the film was a joy to watch.  It's very romantic, but you know that going in.  

Having said that, essentially, "Rome Adventure" is a travelogue romance, and pretty much nothing more.  I enjoyed it but I can't say it was very good.  Though it has some of the same cast members, it doesn't hold a candle to Delmer Daves' previous film, "Summer Place."  It's no where near as well written and quite shallow by comparison.  The visual symbolism (the candelabra, for example, representing Donohue's integrity) was more than heavy-handed.  I wonder what most women today would think of the scene where Donohue tells Pleshette that women's role on Earth is to be the anchor for the man?  I can understand the meaning behind the thought, but in todays PC environment, the way it was handled in the big love scene at the climax is totally chauvinistic. It comes down to script.  It could have been written in a way that suggested Donohue was talking about just he and Pleshette themselves, but the grand gesture of suggesting that the notion that all women were put on earth as the anchors for men is a cage many people (men and women) would bristle at. And the use of Al Hirt gives new meaning to the term "shoe-horned in."

I really enjoy Suzanne Pleshette in most things I've seen her in.  She ended up being cast often as the world weary but intelligent woman who harbors an old love. This is exactly the character she plays in Hitchock's "The Birds," losing out to Tippi Hedren for Rod Taylor's love.  Pleshette's small role is still one of the most remarkably well-developed of any secondary character in all of Hitch's films.  When Rod Taylor discovers what has happened to her during a bird attack, it's a powerfully emotional moment.  Amazing how much sympathy she created for herself with so little screen time. Pleshette in "Rome Adventure" doesn't start out playing the world weary woman she became in later films, but she sort of becomes one as the film progresses.  Of course, the ending pretty much disregards that concept of her character, but it's there nonetheless.  

Troy Donohue, who gave a very good and believable performance in "Summer Place," is pretty wooden here.  He's actually the film's greatest flaw, which I find hard to understand.  He had the same director and writer as "Summer Place," yet Donohue just doesn't connect.  There is little chemistry between he and Pleshette, certainly no fire like he had with Sandra Dee.  

The real star of "Rome Adventure" is Italy.  It was photographed to look quaint and romantic, but the choice of locations, the time of day and consideration of lighting were all beautifully realized.  The film has many similarities to another film from that same year (which also gives me that early 60s jolt), "Light in the Piazza."  Rozzano Brazzi, who stars in "Rome Adventure," was also in "Piazza," playing a similar character.  In the case of "Piazza," however, he's after the mother (played by Olivia deHavilland).  "Piazza" also stars ingénue of the day, Yvette Mimieux and up and coming heart throb, George Hamilton.  Hamilton plays an intrinsically happy Italian who falls in love with Mimieux' childlike character.  "Piazza" is much more successful as a Euro romance than "Rome Adventure" because its plot takes some truly unexpected turns.   "Rome Adventure" unfortunately telegraphs all its surprises along the way.

Yet, in spite of all this, I found there was a lot to enjoy, and I think it's even a film worth revisiting on occasion, if nothing more than to give me another early 60s jolt, but to also re-experience that idyllic world of Rome the filmmakers created.

Warner Brothers in the early 60s had a new roster of stars that they were promoting heavily to become the heirs of the stars of the golden era: Troy Donahue, Connie Stevens, Gardner McKay, Chad Everett, Suzanne Pleshette, etc. They were what people in media today would call "P&G" (i.e., they could be spokespersons for Procter & Gamble: white, wholesome, "All American" types). They were sexy but did not advertise their sexuality. ROME ADVENTURE is a typical vehicle for Warners of this period. Basically, this is a silly movie. BUT it's also quite enjoyable. Set in the Kennedy 60s before the world turned so ugly for us baby-boomers, the film embodies the zeitgeist of the time. That time has long past and maybe that's why this movie is so appealing despite its naiveté. The Birth Control pill had not yet come on the market, so premarital sex was a big gamble for young people. The choice was basically celibacy or matrimony. The price for unchastity could be heavy emotionally, in addition to the obvious risks. And thus was the plot of so many films of that period driven. People still went to church back then. In one scene Suzanne Pleshette says that she goes to church as often as she can and asks Troy Donahue, "Don't you pray? I pray a lot." I don't think a film made today could have a scene like that without being ridiculed.

Tellingly, Ms. Pleshette was the only one of Warner's early 60s young stars to have a long and respectable career. In this movie she plays a vivacious young schoolteacher who resigns her position at a prudish all-female institution and heads for Rome in search of adventure. Her mother worries about her: "So many things can happen!" Prudence: "How terrible if they don't!" (I'm paraphrasing.) She takes a ship over and in route meets Rossano Brazzi, an amorous rich Italian architect, who realizes that she's too young for him, so he introduces her to his student and protégé, Troy Donahue. It's love for these two, despite the bland performance of Donahue. Also in the cast are Angie Dickinson in a very hackneyed role, Constance Ford (in a rare sympathetic role), and Hampton Francher (impressive as a nerdy student). The romantic heart of the film is a trip the two "lovers" take together to Tuscany and Lombardy (while trying to keep their relationship secret from others). The gorgeous Italian scenery and the excellent cinematography combined with Max Steiner's Nino-Rota-influenced score make it quite the blissful holiday.

Yes, it's dated and a lot of the dialogue is ridiculous. Clichés abound. The plot creaks. But it's fun. I'd love to see it again.