Rome Adventure *** (1962, Troy Donahue, Suzanne Pleshette, Angie Dickinson, Rossano Brazzi) – Classic Movie Review 6820

The soft and soapy 1962 romantic melodrama film Rome Adventure is handsomely produced with cute stars (Troy Donahue, Suzanne Pleshette, Angie Dickinson), lovely Italy views, fine Max Steiner music and even some wit.

Writer-producer-director Delmer Daves’s soft and soapy 1962 romantic melodrama of romance in Rome is handsomely produced with cute stars, fine Max Steiner music, lovely views of Italy in Technicolor, and even some wit in director Daves’s dialogue. Daves’s screenplay is based on the 1932 novel Lovers Must Learn by Irving Fineman, which was set in Paris.

Suzanne Pleshette stars as American New England librarian Prudence Bell who travels to Rome, gets a job at the American Bookshop near one of Rome’s famous fountains, dallies with an older Italian charmer Roberto Orlandi (Rossano Brazzi) and falls for handsome American art/ architectural student Don Porter (Troy Donahue), whose manipulative old girlfriend Lyda Kent (Angie Dickinson) then turns up from the USA.

Rome Adventure is soft centred and soapy but, happily, thanks to the hard work all round, all in all it is much better than the plot might imply.

Suzanne Pleshette in 1969.

There was a happy ending: in real life Donahue and Pleshette fell in love while filming and married in 1964. But the happy ending was short lived and the marriage lasted less than a year, ending apparently acrimoniously after just eight months. They also filmed A Distant Trumpet (1964) together.

Also in the cast are Constance Ford as bookshop owner Daisy Bronson, Al Hirt as himself, Hampton Fancher as Albert Stillwell, Iphigenie Castiglioni as La Contessa, Chad Everett as young man, Gertrude Flynn as Mrs Riggs, Pamela Austin as Agnes Hutton, Lili Valenty as Angelina, Mary Patton and Maurice Wells.

Rome Adventure (also known as Lovers Must Learn) is directed by Delmer Daves, runs 119 minutes, is made and released by Warner Bros, is written by Delmer Daves, is shot in Technicolor by Charles Lawton Jr, is produced by Delmer Daves and is scored by Max Steiner, with Art Direction by Leo K Kuter.

The song ‘Al di là’, performed in the film by Emilio Pericoli, was recorded by Betty Curtis and Luciano Tajoli and won the 1961 San Remo Festival, becoming Italy’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest in 1961. It became an international hit for Connie Francis.

Natalie Wood dropped out and Pleshette was signed as Donahue’s co-star in September 1961.

There is copious Italian location shooting, as Don and Prudence go on a bus tour of Italy, but the interiors were shot at Warner Bros, Burbank, reusing the River City Library (as the interior of the American Bookshop) and Port of Entry sets built for The Music Man (1962).

Daves directed Donahue in four successive films: A Summer Place, Parrish, Susan Slade, and Rome Adventure. He then directed Pleshette in Youngblood Hawke (1964) and Brazzi in The Battle of the Villa Fiorita (1965).

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 6820

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Troy Donahue in 1959.