Hepburn + story not as good as setting

It is actually Venice in 1954. The summer of 1954, with an unusually clear weather, due to the anti-cyclone.
Lean was incredibly lucky, for rarely is Venice in the summer anything but sticky.

And yes, I think in no other film was Venice filmed as beautifully.
But that's because Lean loved it and KNEW it.
(Even though some of the sites/sights and itineraries presented in the film are conflated and distorted to the point of being hilarious - to make them more "photogenic", I suppose. :))

At the time, the story had more meaningfulness to the audiences of that Hays Code era, and represented a breakthrough relative to American thinking about sex.

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The story is king.

This is one of Hepburn's five best films and best performances imo, I do agree the story was a bit slight but it was the new "slice of life" type of film that was just a passage in a character's life rather than a detailed story. Kate was superb though - she and Magnani and Hayward all deserved the Oscar that year - one of the best "lonely" characters ever in films. I thought it was a beautiful story though of an old-maid who finds love (and possibly loses her virginity as she is pushing fifty) even though she realizes it is basically just a fling to her partner.

Obviously. It's a simplistic by-the-numbers melodrama elevated to near-greatness by the fantastic direction and scenery; they say the film's a vast improvement over the book it's based on and that is easy to believe. Venice has never looked as spellbinding except for in Don't Look Now - although there, of course, it's an eerie, ominously haunting place. As for Hepburn though... she was hardly ever particularly beautiful and here her skinny head looked like a goddamn top portion of a scarecrow from certain angles.



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