The Novel by Maurice Druon

The original French title is La Volupté d'être (more or less "Pleasure to be" or "Pleasure of being") but somehow it became The Film of Memory when published in England and subsequently in the U.S. in the mid-1950s. Author Druon was a member of the Académie française, and died at age 90 in 2009 - he wrote many other books.

The film followed the novel fairly closely, though the novel, of course, goes into more detail about the Contessa's love-life. Count Sanziani's visit doesn't occur until late in the novel, and from it we learn that the Countess's name is actually Laura rather than Lucrezia, and that the couple had a son who died at two years of age, after which Laura left him and reinvented herself, dedicated herself to a life of pleasure with a series of artistic and/or wealthy men. Minnelli's character is named Carmela in the novel - she and Valentina are not cousins, and in fact Valentina - a much coarser character than that of the film - tries to introduce Carmela to part-time prostitution! We also learn who the "Jeanne" is that the Contessa seems sometimes to mistake Nina for in the film - I think a lot is missing from the film that was intended to be in it, that was either not filmed at all because AIP pulled the plug, or was discarded by AIP after they took the film away from Vincente Minnelli and tried to assemble it into something they could release.

My library system had one copy available - it seemed to be awaiting my summons.

"'Nature,' Mr. Allnut, is what we are put here to rrrrrriiiiise above!"