Freaktana A Major Disappointment

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Janae Milner Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

Sienna-Rose Mclaughlin The movie really just wants to entertain people.

HotToastyRag Katharine Hepburn was nominated for Best Actress at the Academy Awards for the sixth time for her role in Summertime. In short, it's a summer romance between a middle-aged straight-laced American spinster and a hot-blooded Italian. After all, the only circumstances in which a woman would even think of becoming involved with a foreigner would be when she's in a foreign land surrounded by foreigners and no one back home could find out, right? Even from the premise, I found the story a bit politically incorrect, and as the film progressed, I found it more stereotypical than entertaining.Kate the spinster starts out taking a timid vacation in Venice. She doesn't let her hair down until she meets Rossano Brazzi, a kind, handsome, respectful shop owner. He doesn't paw her or ogle her as the other Italians have, and she's drawn to him. Then, of course, when the romance starts, his passionate nature—because he's an Italian, you know—inspires her own hidden passion. In this Italian vacation, infidelity runs rampant, and the cultural differences are pounded into the audience's head. There's a little street urchin who harasses the tourists and tries to scam them out of their money, a character that puts the icing on the cake that isn't particularly respectful to the Italian nationality.If you love movies that show off on-location scenery, there are lots of other films that you can watch. Try Three Coins in the Fountain or A Room with a View for glorious Italian surroundings. Yes, Summertime was filmed in Italy, but the most entertaining souvenir that was picked up was Katharine Hepburn's lifelong eye infection after falling into the filthy canals during filming.

aj989 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.

ginagentry222 No, no, no, no, no. I could NOT watch Katharine Hepburn try to look like anything but the Italian dude's mother! Yes, the scenes of Venice are gorgeous; it made me nostalgic. I even saw the exact same statue I took a picture of when I was there; great to relate that way to a movie. But I'm sorry, Audrey Hepburn, YES. Katherine, not so much. But because I hate to come across like every woman in a movie should be some young nubile thing, let me make this clear: the Italian due was poorly cast. Katharine Hepburn looked like the middle-age schoolteacher. The Italian guy looked like a womanizer; it was hard for me to see him as anything but someone trying to pull one over on our dear Katharine.

jacabiya Hepburn is either too old and unattractive or Brazzi to young and refined (even though he's not very prosperous, we later find out) to make their relationship in this film believable. Brazzi acts as someone commented here more like a predator than as a man in need of love, but then again we never learn much about either character. Was Hepburn supposed to be a virgin? Why does everyone keep calling Hepburn signorina, even when she's with Brazzi? Was Brazzi really feeling lonely and couldn't find a pretty young Italian or tourist girl (he's quite a handsome fellow, you know) and was Hepburn the best he could get? Does he dig older American women (it seems he does)? It also seems he wanted to keep Hepburn but as a mistress, an arrangement she clearly would have refused, but this is never discussed during the abrupt ending. This film has some things in common with Lean's other doomed-from-the start romantic film "Brief Encounter", with trains as a motif. BTW, it seems things have changed plenty since 1955 given that today a woman in Venice I don't think would feel safe walking the city alone, specially at night. All in all, this a very dated, miscast, unbelievable, yet wonderfully photographed film.