disgusting, overrated, pointless

There is definitely an excellent idea hidden in the background of the film. Unfortunately, it's difficult to find it.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

A very intense love story with two yearning characters. JENNIFER JONES is absolutely gorgeous as a straight laced and noble American woman who enters into an affair with an Italian man (played by MONTGOMERY CLIFT). The film takes place entirely at a train station with the two lovers going back and forth in their commitment towards each other even as they stave off red tape.The love story is interspersed with slice of life scenes at the station. - both comedic and heart breaking. I think the film would have been better in the hands of a more conventional American filmmaker. But even then, a really nice watch mainly due to some intense acting and the chemistry between the two leads.

Even with one third missing presumably butchered this is still a fine film. I've never been particularly enamoured of Jennifer Jones, finding her a tad sultry from my taste but I have to confess that here I can find little fault with her and she almost equals Monty Clift in both acting skill and intensity. There is enough evidence both from the photography, set-ups, imagery and even the way De Sica fills the frame with other people, some recurring, others just passing, to regret what might have been although on the other hand what we have is pretty tasty and on the whole is illustrative of what can be done with a run-of-the-mill story of doomed love when you have people of this calibre involved. Very well worth seeking out.

At 63 minutes long, the American release of this Italian filmed drama seems eternal in trying to get and keep one's attention. Jennifer Jones and Montgomery Clift are cast as an American wife on a holiday and her Italian lover who are at a Rome train station wrapping up their affair. Jones previously tried to leave a "Dear John" letter for the emotional Clift who won't let her go, and when her nephew (a young Richard Beymer) shows up to say goodbye, it is apparent that there is a possibility of a scandal brewing. There seems to be footage missing that explains what lead to the romance and why it is so hard for the two to say goodbye. Jones plays a married wife and mother who seems to have no reason for infidelity, and while her attraction to Clift is clear, this absence of details is hard to make the viewer be really interested. There are some nice twists and turns in the story which do briefly increase interest, and the scene where Jones helps a sick pregnant woman with three children is very touching. The city of Rome itself seems to be a character, overcrowded with people in Jones and Clift's way in their desire for privacy. The scene in the police station (afer the two are caught trespassing on a train) is fraught with tension as the time clicks towards the departure of Jones' train, but the ultimate farewell of the two is less than dramatically intriguing.

If the fleeting vapor of your feelings carries greater sway than your commitment to family, have we got a film for you. For the low price of some mild embarrassment & the restraints of secrecy, you can throw away all sense of fidelity & the stability of family. True, you may have some casual, light, & momentary reflections on your spouse or children, but these will pail in comparison to the cheap counterfeit to loving commitment that infidelity offers. You can always feign fidelity, harbor adulterous feelings in your heart, & wonder what might have been...if ever your family life is less than ideal.Don't allow your conscience or the self-righteous convictions of others exaggerate the merely fatal poison you have fed your family & your soul; you can easily build up an immunity to the regret of your self-inflicted destruction by hardening your heart, passing the buck, & rationalizing your choice.