Never
having read the 1950 Tennessee Williams
novel upon which The Roman Spring of Mrs.
Stone is based, or watched the 1961 big screen adaptation starring Vivien
Leigh and Warren Beatty, I have nothing with which to compare this TV movie. Regardless,
I cannot say I was overly impressed with The
Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. The storyline includes intrigue and romance, however,
the pacing is slow and many of the parts are overacted.
After
having been savaged by New York drama critics for starring as Juliet in a
Broadway play, fading actress Karen Stone (Helen
Mirren) declares herself retired, and then she and her husband Tom (Brian Dennehy) depart for post-WWII Europe
for a vacation. During their stay in Italy Tom passes away on a plane flight,
leaving Karen to cope on her own. She decides to stay in Rome, a city still very
much in the process of recovering from WWII. She comes to the attention of an
aging Contessa (Anne Bancroft) who
has a stable of handsome young Italian gigolos whom she introduces to wealthy
middle-aged American women, in order to separate them from their wealth. She
introduces several of them to Karen, finally introducing Paolo (Olivier Martinez) who, of course, has
no interest in her other than her money. Karen buys Paolo dinners and a new
gray suit like her dead husband’s last suit, and allows him to chauffeur her
around in her 1953 Cadillac convertible. When he asks her for 1 million lire
for an operation for his mother ($1,625 at the then exchange rate of $1 to 625 lire)
she observes that it is a lot of money, but gives it to him.
While
Karen enjoys his attention and revels in her own sexual awakening, when Paolo
asks her for 10 million lire ($16,250) to compensate a friend who had lost it
on the black market, Karen begins to realize what is happening. At the same
time, she becomes increasingly aware that a strange, bedraggled young homeless
man waits outside her apartment and follows her wherever she walks around the
city. The film’s climax comes when Karen rebuffs the Contessa’s request for a
large sum of money in dollars, and when she can no longer ignore the fact that
Paolo has turned his amorous attentions to Angel Hunter (Tara Lynne O’Neill) a young actress filming in Rome, and that the
Contessa has begun spreading vicious rumors about her.
The
only thing about The Roman Spring of Mrs.
Stone that makes it worth watching is Helen Mirren’s subtle performance as
Karen Stone, a fading stage actress and widow who discovers her passionate nature
after having had a contented but passionless marriage, and then slowly realizes
the romantic relationship is a sham and she is being played for a fool and
humiliating herself.
Unfortunately
the rest of the performances are not so subtle, and both Olivier Martinez and
Anne Bancroft are little more than two-dimensional caricatures, which spoils
the movie. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
is not a bad movie, but you expect it to be better than it is because of the
material upon which it is based, and the talent starring in it.
Labels:
drama, romance
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