A Place for Lovers

A Place for Lovers

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Vittorio De Sica
Produced by Arthur Cohn
Herschell Gordon Lewis
Carlo Ponti
Written by Brunello Rondi
Julian Zimet
Peter Baldwin
Ennio De Concini
Tonino Guerra
Cesare Zavattini
Starring Faye Dunaway
Marcello Mastroianni
Music by Manuel De Sica
Lee Konitz
Cinematography Pasqualino De Santis
Edited by Adriana Novelli
Production
company
Compagnia Cinematografica Champion
Les Films Concordia
Distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates
  • 19 December 1968 (Italy)
  • 17 September 1969 (France)
Running time
88 minutes[1]
Country France
Italy
Language English

A Place for Lovers (French: Le Temps des amants, Italian: Amanti) is a 1968 French-Italian romantic drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica and based on the play Gli Amanti by Brunello Rondi and Renaldo Cabieri. The film stars Faye Dunaway as a terminally ill American fashion designer in Venice, Italy who has a whirlwind affair with a race car driver (played by Marcello Mastroianni).[2] It was released by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The film was released on DVD in 2009 by Atlantic Film AB.

Plot

The rich Julia is tired of living because she knows she is suffering from a malignant cancer. When the woman leaves for her last holiday in Cortina d'Ampezzo, she meets the young and vital Valerio. The two fall in love instantly, but Julia does not reveal her secret to Valerio. When Valerio finds out that she is sick and dying, he decides to pretend to know nothing, continuing his love affair with Julia to the end.

Cast

Soundtrack

Ella Fitzgerald provides two songs, the title song and Lonely is ("What lonely is, is me!"). Both songs can be heard on the Verve release Jukebox Ella: The Complete Verve Singles, Vol. 1.

Reception

The film opened to generally negative reviews. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times called it the "most godawful piece of pseudo-romantic slop I've ever seen!", and Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times referred to it as "the worst movie I have seen all year and possibly since 1926."[3] Mark Deming wrote in the New York Times that Dunaway and Mastroianni were romantically involved during the filming of Amanti but that little of their personal chemistry can be seen in the movie.[2] Years later, A Place for Lovers was included as one of the choices in the book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time.

References

  1. "A PLACE FOR LOVERS (X)". British Board of Film Classification. 27 February 1969. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  2. 2.0 2.1 New York Times/AllMovie Guide overview
  3. Medved, Harry. "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time." Fawcett Columbine, 1978.

External links