From the 1960s: Rome Adventure

1962 Romance Drama
From Warner Bros.
Directed by Delmer Daves

Starring
Troy Donahue
Suzanne Pleshette
Rossano Brazzi
Angie Dickinson
Hampton Fancher
Constance Ford
Al Hirt
Iphigenie Castiglioni
Gertrude Flynn
Pamela Austin

I was gonna send this out under the guilty pleasures banner until I watched it again and thought... to hell with that.  I love this flick.  There was no guilt, just pleasure, colorful, romantic escapism at its best.  In fact after I watched it, I went back and re-watched individual scenes.  Actually, if I had been watching it for pleasure rather than knowing I was going to review it, I'm likely to have found very few flaws.  

There's a bit of nostalgia here for me, too, because it was the first movie I ever saw with the lovely woman who was to become my wife.  She was nuts about Troy Donahue and neither of us missed his films (although I came to wish I'd missed a few).  In its day, if one were looking for a date movie to help jump start a new romance, there was nothing quite like Rome Adventure.

Pleshette is the clear star of the film.  She is oddly given introducing credit when she had earlier appeared in a Jerry Lewis movie.  She plays Prudence Bell, a librarian at a snooty girls' school, who has come under fire for lending her own copy of Lovers Must Learn to a student.  As school officials reprimand her, she tells them not to bother, that she is going to quit and go to Italy where she hopes to fall in love and be free.

On the ship she meets two men.  One is Albert (Fancher), a stuffy American etruscologist who will be staying at the same boardinghouse she will occupy.  The other is Roberto (Brazzi), a wealthy Roman who is returning home and who has eyes for the fetching 21-year old former librarian.

Once at the boardinghouse run by the charming Contessa  (Castiglioni), she meets Don Porter (Donahue), an architectural student.  Prudence gets an ideal job at the American Bookstore in Rome run by Daisy (Ford) and her sheepdog.  She encourages Prudence to see Rome and advises her she will find the love she is seeking.

Donahue &  Pleshette

Don takes a liking to Prudence and to get their relationship started he does the only sensible thing... goes touring with her.  She has seen much of Rome on solo walks and Roberto has also driven her around.  But Don wants her to see more of Italy and on their journey (via train, bus, horse-drawn carriage and the required Vespa), Prudence falls in love with him.  He neglects to tell her that he is still carrying a bit of a torch for Lyda (Dickinson) a glamorous playgirl who uses men and has just left him for greener pastures.

Prudence thinks everything is going well until she opens the door to Don's room and finds him sitting on the bed with Lyda who has returned to Rome and is about to kiss him.  Lyda invites the two of them for dinner that evening at her place and tells Prudence to bring along a date.  She brings Albert.  It is apparent that the overly-aggressive Lyda thinks she and Don are still a hot item and while that's not true, he does little to deny it.  Prudence tries to withstand Lyda's taunts but leaves in tears in the middle of dinner,

Prudence then tries to put the make on Roberto who is charmed by the whole thing but wise enough to know he's not what she wants.  She then decides, against everyone's advice, to return to America.  When her ship docks, who's there to meet her?  Oh you know.  No one doubted from the beginning that it was going to work out.

Pleshette and Brazzi

Okay now, we've covered the story.  While I found it fun and entertaining, it is a conventional boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl back romantic drama.  It is the same as most every Troy Donahue movie.  I don't think this fact makes the movie a bad one but rather a common one.  And it won't be the last movie you'll see that falls into such a category.   

I'm not sure I've ever seen an American movie that showcases Rome (and Italy) any better.  It is a virtual travelogue, a postcard both to the glories of Italy and love.  Did you note the poster?  Italy's even listed as a costar and indeed it is.  Roberto gives Prudence and Albert a class A tour, furnishing names and some history.  Prudence also walks through the city although I've always
found it a hoot that no matter where she seemed to walk there were no people.  Rome without crowds?  Then, of course, there's the sight-seeing when Pleshette and Donahue see Umbria, Verona, Tuscany, Lake Maggiore and more.  

And then there's Max Steiner's enchanting musical score that has always thrilled me, whether it's the romantic theme or the triumphant sound of horns as Prudence runs through the streets, not unlike what one might hear if she'd been arriving in a chariot.

The romance is never better captured than when the pair stops for a drink at a little club where Emilio Pericoli sings the film's famous theme song, Al Di La.  It became a well-deserved international hit and it's one of those songs that we in the states simply never stopped hearing on the radio.  Pericoli's version played as regularly as one by Connie Francis.

Donahue & Dickinson

I fell head over heels for Pleshette due to this film and it never waivered.  I saw her in most everything she did.  It's too bad that she never made a really great theatrical film (sorry, I have never regarded The Birds as a really great film) or maybe we can say she never made a film that measured up to her talents.  Seemingly unburdened by ego, her beautiful face was so emotional and that husky voice, love of laughter and take-charge attitude made her acting irresistible to me.  I just can't tell you how I feel when I gaze at her face while that song is being heard.

Natalie Wood was supposed to play Prudence but she backed out at the last minute.  Could Donahue's hiring after her have changed her mind?  Pleshette and Donahue took a page out of the script and actually fell in love in real life.  They hummed Al Di La  through most of 1962 and all of 1963 and were married in January 1964.  In May their film A Distant Trumpet, a good western, was released and by September the marriage was over... acrimoniously so.

Then there's Donahue's acting.  I usually smile when I think of him doing that very thing.  It's always been said that's he's so wooden but I always assumed he simply never caught on to the concept.  Those blond good looks, here aided by that frequent white suit that showcased him so beautifully, brought him to the movies and kept him there for a short while and his never rising above a novice took him out.  It was so easy to catch him acting.

Rome Adventure offers no more or less of his abilities than any other film and it was his 18th one.  He never grew.  He was so hesitant.  His somnambulistic approach to his craft, whether expressing anger (one of his specialties that resulted in pouting) or love or applying for work, was the same.

In his most popular films he was always given a scene where he pontificates about something, instructs his leading lady about the ins and outs of something that has little to do with the matters at hand.  It always stands out like a pimple.  Here he wants to tell Prudence more than she needs to know about tickling.  Thank you Professor Donahue.  

This was his fourth consecutive film with director Delmer Daves... A Summer Place, Parrish and Susan Slade being the others... all his most popular movies.  I love Daves' work... always colorful, always entertaining.  He understood the phenomenon that was Troy Donahue and knew what to do with him in the limited options available.  It worked for me.  

In addition to working again with Daves, Donahue had also previously worked with Fancher in Parrish (they had a great fight scene in a field and Fancher is most effective at the droll comedy here) and of course Ford was Sandra Dee's mother in A Summer Place.  She's way lighter and more fun here as the bookshop owner.  Even Gertrude Flynn in a small role as another boarder, was in A Summer Place (as Ford's mother).

And while Dickinson and Brazzi were fine in their roles, their characters were a distraction for me and I thought the film's energy sagged while we devoted time to them.

Trumpeteer Al Hirt appears briefly in the club scene.  After  Pericolo sings Al Di La, Hirt plays a jazzed-up version of it.  Then he does some acting where he badly disrespects his female companion that did not find much favor by audiences at the time and has certainly not resonated well over the years.  I couldn't agree more with the criticism.  At the same time, Ford says to Pleshette that when she first came to Rome a good-looking Italian pinched my bottom and I said "this is for me."  In some quarters this was linked with the Hirt scene as utterly distasteful and this time I don't get it.  Hey, it's the 60s, it's Rome, that happened and so what if she liked it?  Besides, don't check your humor at the door.  There are bigger beasts to slay.

Daves also adapted the screenplay from Irving Fineman's 1932 novel, Lovers Must Learn.  It is also mentioned twice in the film... once, as said, in the opening scene at the school and again when Pleshette and Ford discuss it in the bookshop.  It was additionally the title used all through the filming.  Fineman's book was set in Paris and when the locale of the film became Rome, it came with a title change although it needn't have.  

To some the film is dated, to some it is corny and unimaginative.  In large part those who said that were critics.  The public flocked to it and many of those saw it multiple times.  Lemme tell you, Suzanne, Troy, Rome, some munchies, your favorite drink and a rainy afternoon is quite the adventure.  

Bet you can guess the clip:

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