This sudsy, corn-filled romance would have been affectionately known as a 'woman's picture' back in 1962 when it was made. Today we would call it a 'chick-flic'. After giving up the western, (and he made a handful of very good ones), Delmer Daves turned to churning out some very glossy love stories, usually taken from best-selling novels of variable quality and, more often than not, starring the hottest property of the day, Troy Donahue. Donahue was blonde and beautiful and he could even act after a fashion in that kind of stiff American manner that belonged to an altogether different age; perhaps that is why his career was so short-lived.
Here he's an American artist living in Rome and the girl that falls for him was newcomer Suzanne Pleshette who has left American in search of adventure while clinging to her virtue. If for nothing else we should be eternally grateful for any film that gives us Pleshette who was smart, sexy and beautiful beyond her years but whose career never went anywhere either. There is also an older man in the mix as well, a charming Italian played by ... yes, you guessed it, Rossano Brazzi, (were all middle-aged Italian men like Brazzi?), and a bitch played by Angie Dickinson. (Pleshette acts her off the screen). But the real star of the movie is Italy, photographed in all its Technicolor, travelogue glory pushing the story very much into the background. The Italian tourist board should still be paying Daves royalties.
Here he's an American artist living in Rome and the girl that falls for him was newcomer Suzanne Pleshette who has left American in search of adventure while clinging to her virtue. If for nothing else we should be eternally grateful for any film that gives us Pleshette who was smart, sexy and beautiful beyond her years but whose career never went anywhere either. There is also an older man in the mix as well, a charming Italian played by ... yes, you guessed it, Rossano Brazzi, (were all middle-aged Italian men like Brazzi?), and a bitch played by Angie Dickinson. (Pleshette acts her off the screen). But the real star of the movie is Italy, photographed in all its Technicolor, travelogue glory pushing the story very much into the background. The Italian tourist board should still be paying Daves royalties.