Summertime – 1955 | 99mins | Romance | Colour

Plot Synopsis

Film adaptation of Arthur Laurents’ play The Time of the Cuckoo, with a screenplay by David Lean and H.E. Bates. Filmed on location in Venice by Jack Hildyard.

Spinster Jane Hudson (Katherine Hepburn), is an American school teacher, single and growing older she carefully saves her money to enjoy a holiday trip to Venice in the faint hope she may find the romance that she has been seeking for so long. While shopping near St. Mark’s Square she stops to look at two goblets in a shop window, the handsome art dealer Renato Di Rossi (Rossano Brazzi), compliments Jane on her good taste in purchasing the antiques. When Jane returns to her hotel she meets a couple who have just returned from a tour with identical goblets, it appears the antiques are being produced in bulk. Jane returns to Renato’s shop to complain, but he sweeps her off her feet and offers her the romance she has been searching for. Jane’s dreams come to a crashing halt when she learns that Renato is the married father of a large family. Jane is initially outraged by Renato’s deception but remains determined to keep her romance alive whatever the outcome, but she finally does what’s best for everyone involved and returns home to America with the lasting memory of the happiest summer of her life.