Saturday, December 20, 2014

Movie review - "The Light in the Piazza" (1962) *** (second review)

This is the sort of material that could have gone horribly wrong, as it did in producer Arthur Freed's previous film, The Subterraneans, but on the whole it works very well, with sensitive hands from people not normally associated with MGM: director Guy Green (not super highly regarded or even remembered these days but with some impressive films on his resume), writer Julius Epstein, star Olivia de Havilland. 

Two MGM contractees really step up to the plate - Yvette Mimeux (who usually played air headed flower power types anyway.... her characters in The Time Machine and Where the Boys Are aren't much cluey-er than the one she plays here), and George Hamilton, whose Italian accent seems to liberate him; he gives a relaxed, likable performance, and it was convincing to me.

To be sure there are some dodgy moments, like when de Havilland talks about the ability of her mentally challenged daughter to live in Italy because she won't have to do any housework and can just talk about movie stars all day (what do Italians think of this movie? It's not very flattering?) There's also a lot of plot towards the end about a dowry and the age difference between George Hamilton and Yvette Mimieux - this, when the real drama is that she's not all there. And I wish the romance between de Havilland and Rosanno Brazzi had been resolved more.

But the handling is fine, it is consistently interesting, there is strong drama at times, notably Mimieux's hysteria scenes, and the clashes between de Havilland and husband Barry Sullivan. Beautiful location work in Italy, too.

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