Manhattan William
The film is beautifully acted and the casting is spot-on. Vivien Leigh is perfect in this role, neither sickly sweet or icy cold. Beatty is great to look at and plays the gigolo without any histrionics. The Contessa is great and earned a well deserved Oscar nomination. The story is relevant even today (although unfortunately nowadays these things happen with far less elegance and finesse. What holds it back from a higher rating is that the character development between Mrs. Stone and Paolo should have gotten more focus and development. No real explanation is given for how the relationship developed as quickly and strongly as it did. Of course that aspect plays into the cool nature of the film in general which many might find correct for this material but I would have liked a bit more development between the 2 principles. Perhaps neither was able to express much in the way of "emotion" and that is surely part of the point, and the finale when Mrs. Stone throws the keys to the gigolo on the street because, realizing that love is elusive, physical needs can still be met and that provides a great ending to the film, very unsentimental and leaves one with a shiver.I enjoyed the film and recommend it but don't expect anything warm and fuzzy here because that is not in the cards, folks.
Casadena
"Are you trying to--touch me, Contessa?" No one who sees Vivien Leigh on film can remain unmoved by her for long, if they are sensitive to beauty. Or pain. Despite whatever faults it may reveal to some, this film is a truly beautiful representation of the singularly tormented art of a hypnotically compelling actress. Watch her eyes in the introductory scene on the sofa, as she glances at the Contessa and her boy, over the smoke rising from her filter-less cigarette. Or at the villa lunch party--is anyone more graceful on screen with a fork and an awkward plate of food in their hands while managing to consume, register taste, swallow, and speak "sophisticated" dialog in the best postwar style, in a foreign (American) accent? Watch her in the café scene with Lotte Lenya's voracious pimp zeroing in on its prey: Leigh was tormented by the word "Beautiful"--friends and fans called her that to her face almost involuntarily, yet she couldn't tell them it drove her crazy, that her English convent school upbringing made that word synonymous with "shallow", at least to her way of thinking--but what other word describes her? Vivien Leigh casts a spell on all who see her, long after her death from tuberculosis in 1967. Oh, and the 1961 Lincoln convertible is as beautiful as any of the "Roman" scenery in the background; it is the perfect choice for Karen Stone's car.
rajah524-3
There are three major problems here, and not just for millennial-era viewers: 1) Jose Quintero's emotionally numb direction, 2) Warren Beatty in a role he wasn't cut out for until ten years later, and 3) Tennessee Williams's severely dated high concept.Quintero's lack of experience in film is evident. He was a stage director, and it shows here. The lines are spoken for the words to be understood from a distance. Quintero seems to have little sense of using the faces of the actors to convey anything in the one- or two-shots... save for what the estimable Ms. Leigh manages on her own.Beatty's Paolo needed at least some of Richard Gere's Julian (in "American Gigolo") to make this fly, but either he had no sense of the character himself or Quintero got in his way.William's book is a reflection of Williams himself as the title character. "TRSOMS" is Williams trying to work through the fear of his own histrionic narcissism too many years in advance of what he pictured aging to be for a "queen" rather than what it really is. He was only 38 when he wrote the novella, after all. Leigh's character is him, but only insofar as he could project a future that he had merely envisioned rather than actually experienced.I've read plenty about Ms. Leigh's own struggles and supposed identification with her character. But if that is the case, I don't see much of it on screen, again, perhaps, owing to the wooden direction.Younger viewers will have to interpret this as a "period piece." 1950 and 1960 are to them what the Victorian Age was to us: Anachronistic. The conflicting values expressed by the characters do not make much sense to those raised on either Lady Gaga or "Cougartown." Today's 48-year-olds "go for it" on the basis of peer-approval, not despite it.
Spikeopath
" And when the time comes when nobody desires me for myself:I would rather not be desired at all"As with all Tenessee Williams adaptations it's the characters that keep the viewer interested, always intriguing and seemingly fractured with personal demons. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is no different, and much like the other adaptations the actors on show here come up trumps to realise the heavy dialogue driven story. This film centres on an ageing actress whose husband dies and leaves her to face her fears whilst holidaying in beautiful Rome. Here she is pimped a male companion for company and the film then fleshes out the respective characters to a craftily ambiguous ending. But it's the journey that each characters psyche takes that lifts the film above average.The back story to the film is a belter and knowing this back story helped me to enjoy the film much more than perhaps I would have. Vivien Leigh is here as the scared and alone ageing actress who falls in love with a much younger man, in real life Leigh's husband Sir Laurence Olivier had just left her for a younger woman. You can't help believing that the wonderfully tragic performance she gives here is really from the heart. The character of Karen Stone is actually based on Tenessee Williams himself, all the fears and stresses of the title character are how he felt has he penned this novella. Warren Beatty is a fine choice as the gigolo of the piece, he looks the part and actually looks like an Italian man, but I really can't vouch for his accent because during scenes where he gets angry he actually sounds more Soviet! That aside tho, he gives a well solid performance that didn't deserve the negative reviews that it got on release. Lotte Lenya {who later on would thrill me as the villainess Rosa Kleb in From Russia With Love} is brilliant here, in fact she almost steals the film as high society pimp, Contessa, all devilish charm with money signs sparkling in her eyes.Great writing, fine acting, and poignant to the last with a cracking and worth waiting for ending. 7/10.
AD
