Summertime (1955)

'She came to Venice a tourist- and went home a woman...'

‘Venice: a meticulous love-letter…’

At this time of year, my mind turns to the idea of sunnier climes. London sits in a basin of clay, a grey fug from January to May. As I look out of the grimy basement window (a sodden garden on a raw London morning), I’m suddenly thinking: how pleasant to be snatched, suddenly, as if by some occult osmosis: dropped bang in the middle of Venice on a fresh, sunny, Spring morning— enlivened, perhaps, by the odd shower of rain. Actually, thinking about it, not in the middle as such, more to the left and down a bit: on the unfashionable side of the Grand Canal, off the beaten track. At the garden of the Antica Locanda Montin (trellis and vine), culinary star of the 1970 romantic Euro-flick, Anonimo Veneziano (1970), aka The Anonymous Venetian.

Arrival…

Venice and film go hand in hand. Death in Venice (1970) and Don’t Look Now (1973) are the two films that obviously spring to mind— somehow autumnal, misty Venice and the 1970s are a perfect match. But there are the less obvious choices, too: Joseph Losey’s Eva (1962), set on the Veneto; The Comfort of Strangers (1990), starring Rupert Everett and the lovely, late Natasha Richardson, based on Ian McEwan’s disturbing and kinky novel, and Fellini’s Casanova (1976), a film I have yet to see. This brings me to David Lean’s Summertime (1955) (or Summer Madness for the British release), which stars Katherine Hepburn and Venice, or, alternatively, Venice and Katherine Hepburn. With a script by H. E. Bates.

‘Like a colour plate from a 1950s art book…’...