I love this movie so much

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Summertime is David Lean and Katherine Hepburn's love letter to lonely, middle aged secretaries everywhere. Although the film is rather thin and at times acts more like a tourist reel of Venice, the performances by Hepburn - the best of her work in the 1950s - and the incredibly charming and suave Rossano Brazzi makes up for the film's weak points. The film is a breezy adaptation of an Arthur Laurents play that while on paper seems to be nothing particularly special, is enlivened by Lean's vivid direction and the chemistry between Hepburn and Brazzi. She plays a lonely secretary traveling through Venice, and he is a lonely store keeper. They meet, fall in love, yet they must part because she has to return home. Hepburn's typically heavy mannerisms and her increasingly croaky voice appear only a little bit here in the beginning but after the first 10 minutes she is nothing but great. It certainly is a charming film and the last scene at a train station is just spectacular.

The romance here isn't really satisfying, between wiry, uptight woman from Ohio touring Europe and suave Italian antique shopkeeper. It has the usual narratives motions of this type of film but not the deep conviction, the right notes but they don't amount to music for the soul.But do away with the obvious narrative thrust and there's something here. The place is marvelous of course, Venice. Touristy even then but still fragnant and raw from centuries, what I like here is that we wander a little further into the small Italian village that exists between the palazzos, we see backyards with laundry hanging from wires, narrow passageways and empty streets at dawn. Lean tries to weave several fabrics into this, several types of camera.My favorite by far is the sense of the stranger in a new place, the place is teeming with possibility and beauty but there's something holding her back, we have this wonderful tension between wanting to explore and expose oneself and being afraid to. Hepburn wonderfully anchors this part, a fragility and unease she must have known on her skin. The camera is ordinary, capturing a woman pacing back and forth in a veranda drowned with plants and sunlight.We have a painterly eye, as mannered as the romance and used in it to pluck a certain beauty from place, sunsets and panoramas. There's a great scene with a white gardenia (standing in for lost time and youth, wasted opportunity) being carried by the water at night, the man leans in to get it for her but it slips away, all things must. Another is a dynamic eye, seen most clearly in the parting scene as he chases her train leaving Venice to hand her a going away present and she runs back through wagons to meet his hand. No dice again, the motion parts them.Lean would evolve and combine all these in Lawrence, this however romances me more. It's perched somewhat uneasily between the old Hollywood of crisp, loaded gestures and the new cinema of Rossellini where the gestures sketch a more tentative time.

The somewhat astringent personality of Katharine Hepburn is well suited for this movie, in which she plays Jane Hudson, a middle-aged woman who has apparently been too guarded or puritanical ever to enjoy a grown-up romance. At the same time, the Rossano Brazzi character, Renato, is an opportunist, adding a dimension of realism to Jane's habitual caution and suspicion.No surprise, then, that in the end she abruptly puts a stop to their romance, even though it causes her so much pain to do so. Renato wants the romance to continue but seems to have no intention of divorcing his wife and seems heedless of the enormous gulf that separates him from Jane--different worlds, different world views. It is a bittersweet ending like that of David Lean's earlier movie, Brief Encounter.The movie has been criticized as being something of a "travelogue," but the story would have had far less meaning if it had been set in New York or even Paris. Venice is a magical place, a seemingly impossible city that nevertheless exists as a jewel on the surface of the sea. No other city could so clearly be the setting for the once-in-a-lifetime magical experience of a spinster secretary from Akron.In any case, the location filming of Venice is a delight to behold.Another likely criticism, from a feminist viewpoint, is that Jane is portrayed as less than complete without a man. I find this criticism beside the point of the film, which is that romance is an experience that most people want to have at least once in their life.

Ohio secretary Jane Hudson (Katharine Hepburn) has saved up for years to visit Venice and it's everything she hoped it would be...exquisitely beautiful and romantic...but lonely. Or so she thinks on her first night there, as she sits alone and watches the lovers in Piazza San Marco. Then, she sees Renato (Rossano Brazzi), a handsome and charming shopkeeper, and she starts to change her mind. He pursues her, too, and before you can say, "Buona Sera!" they fall in love. Jane now thinks Venice is perfectly glorious, but some information about Renato may change her opinion of both him and Venice.Directed by David Lean who is known for his wonderful epic movies, this is a very simple and intimate story of a middle-aged woman's wistful dream of romance. It's easy to feel Jane's initial pain and later, her exhilaration. Hepburn is perfectly cast and gives a touching performance, full of longing and spunk. Charismatic Brazzi was just starting his American film career in 1955 when he played Renato, and he certainly could sweep a woman off her feet. Filmed entirely in Venice, the scenery is lovingly photographed, and there's even a sweet subplot about a little boy. Highly recommended for those who like a mature romance in an idyllic setting. Lovely.