Rating: 
Summary: Summertime
Review: My second all-time Katharinge Hepburn movies. I have seen it at least five times. It is the epitimy of romance movies. Miss Hepburn and Rosana Brazzi, with the masterful touch of David Lean, make Venice come alive on film. Watching it is the best 90-minute summer a movie lover can spend.
Rating:
Summary: Summertime
Review: My second all-time Katharinge Hepburn movies. I have seen it at least five times. It is the epitimy of romance movies. Miss Hepburn and Rosana Brazzi, with the masterful touch of David Lean, make Venice come alive on film. Watching it is the best 90-minute summer a movie lover can spend.
Rating:
Summary: Romantic Venice, summer breezes off the canal, magnifico!!
Review: Summertime is a wonderful classic film of travel and love. The setting couldn't be more romantic. Venice in all it's splendor is on display with fine acting from Katherine Hepburn. You'll want to pack your bags and hop a plane to Italy before the film is even over.
Rating:
Summary: Magnificent
Review: Summertime is one of my favorite films. Katharine Hepburn and Rossano Brazzi are superbly cast in this great film. Venice is
a dream. Sad ending though. I would have stayed in Venice.
Rating: 
Summary: Oh, Renaldo, I must get ahn that train.....
Review: SUMMERTIME is wonderful proof that not all girls during the Eisenhower era get the guy. Hepburn sheds her trademark mannerisms (well, most of them anyway), and gives a lovely, nuanced performance. Venice is sumptuously realized by David Lean's camera, and Brazzi proved why the chicks dug him, even if he was shorter than Hepburn."Oh, Renaldo -- I must get ahn that train..."
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Summary: Perfect summer romance
Review: Summertime pairs Hepburn with Italian hunk Rossano Brazzi in a delicious, sad, funny and ultimately very adult film about a Plain Jane who finds romance in Venice. Hepburn is a joy to watch here as she gets to show so many facets of her character. Jane Hudson is socially self-assured; she has a funny quip for every occasion and she's not afraid to speak her mind; she really is the quintessential American spinster of the early 20th century. She has a romantic side that longs for moonlight trysts in a gondola, dancing at midnight, and coffee and small-talk with her lover in a sidewalk café, but there's an element of prudishness which holds her back from a love affair with a married Venetian who assures her that he and his wife have an "understanding." Ultimately Jane recognizes that she's not likely to get her dream of love intact and that she'd be a fool not to take the one on offer, and she blossoms into the happy, loving, passionate woman she (and the viewer) always suspected she could be. Brazzi as Renato is earnest and handsome, and while he's no great shakes as an actor, he does persuade us. After all, we want to be persuaded, don't we? Just like Jane Hudson, we want to believe that even after half a lifetime of loneliness and disappointment, love is possible. There are some nice supporting roles here, particularly a young Darrin McGavin as a self-involved artist, and Mari Aldon as his trophy wife who isn't quite as dumb as she first seems. There are a few bits of business that seem forced, such as the loud, insensitive American tourists - perhaps this sort of characterization has become so clichéd that what was new in 1955 seems awkward and heavy-handed now - and Jane's friendship with a street urchin who cadges cigarettes from her. On the other hand, Isa Miranda gives a lovely, low-key performance as the owner of the pensione where Jane is staying. If Jane is the quintessential American spinster, then Signora Fiorina is the essence of a worldly European woman of "a certain age." Don't look for a syrupy, artificially happy ending here; Jane returns to her old life, her real life, if you will, in spite of the happiness she's known with Renato because she is a practical woman and this was, after all, just a summertime fling.
Rating:
Summary: Katharine Hepburn at her best
Review: Summertime would seem an odd choice for Katharine Hepburn to play in, a technicolor film set in Venice, with her vulnerable and in love with Rossano Brazzi. Yet, she acts the role of the American abroad seeking love with exquisite conviction, and, Rossano Brazzi gives the best performance he ever gave in any English speaking film to be sure. The reason for his performance is Katharine Hepburn's performance..so smooth, graceful, and never out of line with the issues of the plot, but giving David Lean, the director..one of his best... more than he perhaps bargained for..depth, sensitivity, despair, loneliness, and an ending that is sad and filled with unfulfilled hopes, strung out as Miss Hepburn is by a Venetian memory, not at all epic in scope, but it is made so, by her genius. The score helps a great deal to underscore the film, making it operatic, and the Rossini references and his actual music add to this operatic sensibility. Summertime is one of the few films up to this point(1955) Katharine Hepburn made in color..there was The African Queen,(1951), Desk Set(1955) but she is very different in these, and The Rainmaker, later than Summertime by a year, is hampered by indoor sets and color that hide rather than show Ms. Hepburn's startling beauty. In Summertime, in color, she gets her only chance to be absolutely stunning, and it is so paplable and rich that you cannot take your eyes off of her. See this beutiful film,but watch for the American racism, the advanced sexual mores that the Catholic Church hated in this film but could not censor, and the very evident pollution of the canals of Venice in 1955. David Lean, always showing the shining surfaces, but always too, the shadows and the undertows of life..even in Zhivago. Lots of subtlties and lots of Katharine Hepburn here. A must!
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Summary: The Best of Hepburn ? Possibly !!
Review: SUMMERTIMEis the film version of the hit Shirley Booth Broadway success "Time of the Cuckoo" and it later would be the basis for Richard Rodgers & Stephen Sondheim's "Do I Hear a Waltz?" Obviously, there is substantial reason for the longevity of a simple romantic plot in a remarkably romantic setting. It simply works, but David Lean's film version works the best of all. Never has Venice been captured on screen as well, and, certainly, never as effectively as a "character" in a lovely tale that is made perfect for even the most anti-romantic audiences by the superlative, career topping work of Katharine Hepburn as a spinster who discovers "true love" with an unacceptable partner during her Venice vacation. The color is absolutely perfect; the music is splendid; everything works. The cast rises to Hepburnian heights -- including Rossano Brazzi, Mari Aldon, Isa Miranda, Darren McGavin, and an adorable youngster. Key scenes are everywhere, but who will ever forget Hepburn and the Canal....!! A lovely movie that deserves its perennial popularity.
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Summary: Summertime from a technical aspect
Review: The film to DVD transfer of "Summertime" is gorgeous and looks as close to a Technicolor print as one could possibly expect. Unfortunately the splendor is spoiled by digital errors which cause playback of the disk to freeze for a second or two at several places throughout the film. I've had two copies of the DVD and played them on several machines with the same problem recurring in the exact same parts of the film. If these could be corrected, and the sound put in sync with the film this would be a phenomenal presentation indeed.
Rating:
Summary: Kate Hepburn's Best Performance!
Review: The legendary Katherine Hepburn is in her best self in this simple, lovely film directed by the great David Lean. The plot is simple: A middle aged American woman travels to Venice in order to find love and ends up falling for a married man. The verbal exchanges between Hepburn's character Jane and the young Italian street kid are both fascinating and entertaining to watch. This film is a must for any Hepburn fan!
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