280 - Summertime, United Kingdom, 1955. Dir. David Lean.
David Lean.
The great director of great epics.
The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). Lawrence of Arabia (1962). The Greatest Story Ever Told (1965). Doctor Zhivago (1965). A Passage to India (1984).
Before that he was the director of great literary adaptations.
In Which We Serve (1942). This Happy Breed (1944). Blithe Spirit (1945). Brief Encounter (1945). Great Expectations (1946). Oliver Twist (1948). Hobson's Choice (1954).
Katharine Hepburn.
The great film actress of the 20th century.
Greta Garbo came before her. Meryl Streep came after her. But who has ever matched her?
Mary Pickford, Mae West, Marlene Dietrich, Carole Lombard, Claudette Colbert, Jean Harlow, Joan Fontaine, Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Ava Gardner, Barbara Stanwyck, Elizabeth Taylor, Vivien Leigh, Olivia De Havilland, Judy Garland, Rita Hayward, Janet Leigh, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly, Eva Marie Saint, Audrey Hepburn, Lauren Bacall.
There have been many great ones. Many others. And many since. But who has quite done what Katharine Hepburn did? Acting in films for over six decades. She won the greatest number of Oscars. She won her first and last one nearly fifty years apart.
A Bill of Divorcement (1932). Little Women (1933). Morning Glory (1933). Alice Adams (1935). Sylvia Scarlett (1935). Stage Door (1937). Bringing Up Baby (1938). Holiday (1938). The Philadelphia Story (1940). Woman of the Year (1942). Adam's Rib (1949). The African Queen (1951). Pat and Mike (1952). Long Day's Journey Into Night (1962). Guess Who's Coming to Dinner (1967). The Lion in Winter (1968). Rooster Cogburn (1975). On Golden Pond (1981).
So of course you all know the great film made by the great epic film director and the great film actress when they worked together.
Summertime (1955).
What?
Summertime (1955).
You have never heard of it?
How did that happen?
This overlooked film is tucked away in the middle of each of their illustrious careers. For David Lean it serves as the segue from his literary adaptations to his epic stories. For Katharine Hepburn, it came after her MGM contract ran out and she had just taken a couple years off to travel the world before starting again as an independent artist. She took on this role because she like the emotional arc of the character, and she followed it up with a Shakespearean tour with the Old Vic.
Summertime also occurs during a period when Hepburn found herself playing old maids. Spinsters. She did this with The African Queen (1951), Summertime (1955), and The Rainmaker (1956).
By this time she had been married and divorced, had been in several relationships, including ones with her agent Ludlow Ogden Smith and with Howard Hughes, was rumored to be bisexual, and had been with Spencer Tracy for over a dozen years. However, she found a niche with roles where her character is naive, inexperienced, uptight, and alone. Both the critics and the public loved her in these roles, and she herself claimed that she was merely playing herself.
Summertime is set in Venice, and it gives David Lean the opportunity to show off its beauty with his and cinematographer Jack Hildyard's location camera work.
Venice is a popular location for filmmaking because of its beauty and charm. We have seen at a least a one film set there, with Luchino Visconti's Senso (1954). Consider these others: Dangerous Beauty, Death in Venice, Don't Look Now, Everyone Says I Love You, From Russia With Love, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, The Italian Job, Moonraker, Othello, and The Talented Mr. Ripley. (Purple Noon was not filmed in Venice but in Naples and Rome.)
Jane Hudson comes from Akron, Ohio. She has been saving up for years for her dream vacation. She begins the film on a train, holding her home film camera, filming the sights, talking to a veteran traveler, as they enter Venice.
When she arrives she meets two American tourists, Mr. and Mrs. Lloyd and Edith McIlhenny. No, they do not make TABASCO Sauce. They are not from Avery Island, Louisiana. They are from Kankakee, Illinois. Mr. McIlhenny is not yet impressed. He says Venice is "just Luna Park on water." He is amazed that there are paintings everywhere, "all done by hand!" The two of them are here on a tour put together by their travel agent, and they have very little time to do anything outside of the itinerary prepared for them. They are impressed by all that is cheap.
Jane meets a little boy on the street named Mauro. He follows her around. Becomes her friend. She calls him Cookie. He calls her Cookie in return. His presence underscores her loneliness. She sees people paired up everywhere and realizes that she has no one. She is alone. So the role of her best friend is filled by a little boy.
She meets a man on the plaza. Renato. He sees her. He looks at her. He has that look when he looks at her. She flinches. Falters. Fumbles. She is not used to being gazed at or adored. Somehow manages to get out of there unscathed.
Then she makes a fateful decision. She sees a red goblet in a store window. She stops to shop. Renato is the store owner. He sells her the goblet. It begins a relationship.
The film is about that relationship.
And about the different ways people view the world. And their approaches to love and companionship.
In The African Queen Katharine Hepburn falls in love in front of us.
She does it here too.
* * * * *
In America every woman under 50 calls herself a girl.
In Italy you sit down and you eat a meal.
In France you sit down and you eat a sauce.
In America you sit down and what do you eat? Pills.
Those miracles, they can happen. But you must give a little push to help, sometimes.
We saw each other. We liked each other.
This is so nice. How can it be wrong?
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