The writer of the source play dismissed this film as awful and his reasons are perfectly correct. Without his analysis the movie is quite pleasant, offers very good location photography, a sense of atmosphere and feeling for characters too.
The first half is better, with Hepburn's character, Jane Hudson, making great efforts to enjoy her time in Venice, (luckily oblivious to the Neapolitan songs soundtrack), and the difference between the button-down America she comes from and the more liberal Italy. Henry James had this story covered on many occasions, but it works as the movie develops with the romance and the inner moral conflict that Hepburn's mousy traveler must undergo.
And then it hits the problem that Arthur Laurents, who wrote the source play defines: they removed Act 2 and that means the second half of the film is a pedestrian holiday romance with too many montage scenes.
The reason Act 2 was removed was it debated the moral conflict which led to the Brazzi's de Rossi character leaving the priggish Hudson-Hepburn. That would have been much more dramatically interesting, but in a medium where platitudes are accepted as insight, such things pass.
The film is British and was not subject to the Production Code at the time, which means the loss of the dramatic content was more unfortunate. In any case, for a star vehicle, such an episode was not possible.
Not everyone will share Laurent's view that is it awful, Hepburn certainly didn't; she thought she was wonderful, but then, Dorothy Parker said of Hepburn years earlier in a Broadway play, that she ran the whole gamut of emotions-from A to B. And with that astringent voice, is not wrong here, either.
Those faults apart, the scenes of Venice are sufficient to hold the attention.
The first half is better, with Hepburn's character, Jane Hudson, making great efforts to enjoy her time in Venice, (luckily oblivious to the Neapolitan songs soundtrack), and the difference between the button-down America she comes from and the more liberal Italy. Henry James had this story covered on many occasions, but it works as the movie develops with the romance and the inner moral conflict that Hepburn's mousy traveler must undergo.
And then it hits the problem that Arthur Laurents, who wrote the source play defines: they removed Act 2 and that means the second half of the film is a pedestrian holiday romance with too many montage scenes.
The reason Act 2 was removed was it debated the moral conflict which led to the Brazzi's de Rossi character leaving the priggish Hudson-Hepburn. That would have been much more dramatically interesting, but in a medium where platitudes are accepted as insight, such things pass.
The film is British and was not subject to the Production Code at the time, which means the loss of the dramatic content was more unfortunate. In any case, for a star vehicle, such an episode was not possible.
Not everyone will share Laurent's view that is it awful, Hepburn certainly didn't; she thought she was wonderful, but then, Dorothy Parker said of Hepburn years earlier in a Broadway play, that she ran the whole gamut of emotions-from A to B. And with that astringent voice, is not wrong here, either.
Those faults apart, the scenes of Venice are sufficient to hold the attention.