| The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone | |
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 Film poster | |
| Directed by | José Quintero |
| Written by |
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| Based on | The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone 1950 novel byTennessee Williams |
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |
| Cinematography | Harry Waxman |
| Edited by | Ralph Kemplen |
| Music by | Richard Addinsell |
| Color process | Technicolor |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by | |
Release date |
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Running time | 103 minutes |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is a 1961 Britishromantic drama film made byWarner Bros.[1][2][3] The film starsVivien Leigh andWarren Beatty. It was directed byJosé Quintero and produced byLouis de Rochemont with Lothar Wolff as associate producer. The screenplay was written byGavin Lambert and Jan Read and based on the novel byTennessee Williams. The music score was byRichard Addinsell and the cinematography byHarry Waxman.
This was the only theatrically released film directed by José Quintero.[4]
Karen Stone, an acclaimed American stage actress and her businessman husband are off on holiday toRome. On the plane, her husband, a multi- millionaire, suffers a fatal heart attack. Karen decides to stay inItaly and rent a luxury apartment in Rome. She has no reason to go home. She shut down her latest play,Shakespeare's "As You Like It", because she realizes she is far too old to play Rosalind. A year later, the Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales, a procurer, introduces her to a handsome, well-dressed, narcissistic young Italian named Paolo, who is one in her stable of professionalgigolos.
Magda plots and plans, telling Paolo that Mrs. Stone has just begun to taste loneliness. Paolo and Mrs. Stone go out for dinner and dancing, but no more. Eventually, she begins the affair. She falls in love with him; he pretends to love her. She believes that she is different from other mature women he has known. Her self-deception is aided by the fact that she does not actually pay him, but buys him expensive clothes and gifts, including a movie camera, and pays his bills through charge accounts. They become the subject of gossip columns. It soon becomes obvious that Paolo is only interested in himself. Eventually he is bored by Mrs. Stone's possessiveness and pursues an American starlet.
Abandoned by Paolo, ridiculed by the Contessa, with her only real friend, Meg, on a plane to New York, Mrs. Stone looks over her balcony and sees the ragged, mysteriously menacing young man who has followed her everywhere since the day she moved in, pacing. She tosses the keys of her apartment down to him and walks back inside, remembering what she told Paolo after he tried to frighten her with a story about a middle-aged woman murdered on the French Riviera by someone she invited into her apartment: "All I need is three or four years. After that, a cut throat would be a convenience". She lights a cigarette and sits down to wait. The youth comes into the apartment and walks toward her slowly, hands deep in the pockets of his filthy coat, smiling faintly as his shadow fills the screen.
Williams had approval over director and screenwriter; he had worked with Quintero several times in the theatre and admired Gavin Lambert'sThe Slide Area. The film was going to be entirely shot in Italy but then the producer did a deal with Warner Bros which entailed filming in Britain. A number of scenes set outside were rewritten to be set inside where they could be filmed in England.[5]
The first actor offered the part of the countess wasElisabeth Bergner who turned it down.[5]
According to Quintero, "Warren was never popular with the crew. Out of what I can only imagine to be insecurity, he was arrogant and huffy to Vivian. He kept people waiting."[6]
Variety called it a "gloomy, pessimistic portrait of the artist as a middle-aged widow" adding the "curiosity factor" in Leigh's appearance might "avert the dubious boxoffice career which the enterprise might be destined" as the film "seems in for some tough sledding, principally because of the unhappy, unsavory characters... an audience will have enormous difficulties establishing compassion, let alone identification."[1]
In his memoirs, Tennessee Williams called it his favorite movie of all those made from his work. "I think that film is a poem. It was the last important work of both Miss Leigh and of the director, José Quintero, a man who is as dear to my heart as Miss Leigh is."[7]
However the film was not a box office success.[8]
Lotte Lenya was nominated for anOscar forBest Supporting Actress.
In 2003, an Emmy Award-winningmade-for-cable version was produced forShowtime Networks starringHelen Mirren,Anne Bancroft, andOlivier Martinez.