I originally saw this film on the small screen many years ago and recently had the chance to see on the big screen and am so happy that I did. It really is a visual delight. The story is solid and handled at what I find a languid, leisurely summertime pace. Venice really is stunning but one of my visually favorite scenes is when Kate's character, Jane Hudson arrives at her pensione and is shown her room for the first time, there's something about her room that I find kind of magical and in which I would like to stay myself. I'm a little torn regarding how I feel about Hepburn's performance though. There are scenes where her acting feels mannered, and others where she is quite aggressive in her performance. Yet on the other hand I think she, and the film, does a good job in expressing the challenges one deals with as a solo traveller. I also have to admit there were times when I asked myself how someone as attractive and suave as the Rosanno Brazzi character could find someone as cold and uptight as Jane Hudson appealing. The films ending was interesting and appropriate and one that is true to the character of Jane Hudson. Despite some reservations/questions, I really, really enjoyed this film and am certain that I will see it again at some point in my future.

No...simply NO! Do you enjoy campy films with near-zero story line? Experiencing the anguish of neurotic women who have no self-esteem...or the lying, cheating, thieving men who abuse them? Then: this film is for YOU! On a positive note, Venice is pretty and you get to see Piazza San Marco about 1,000,000 times.

If you're a young royal princess, you can reap a gleeful fling in Rome with nothing to worry except for paparazzi's cameras, like Audrey Hepburn in William Wyler's ROMAN HOLIDAY (1953); but for another legendary Hepburn, Katharine, who plays Jane Hudson (the namesake of Bette Davis' Baby Jane in Robert Aldrich's WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO BABY JANE? 1962) in this completely shot-in-Venice wanderlust abettor directed by David Lean, her Venetian holiday is not all that glamorous like the locale in its Technicolor beguilement.Jane is an American secretary from Ohio, middle-aged and unmarried, the vacation is a once-in-a- life-time adventure for her (not just monetarily speaking), in a certain degree, as if she is looking for something, or some reason to live on, there is no complemented background story about her character, but she is the almighty Hepburn, even acting against nobody but herself, she can elicit sympathy with just one single expression, a strained twitch on her face, or a look betrays her smoldering despair.The exotic flirtation is a standard configuration under such circumstances, here comes Renato de Rossi (Brazzi), a dapper Italian who is the owner of an antique shop in Venice. Mutual attractions spark spontaneously, but the romance must undergo a more tortuous progress to permit Jane to lower her bars, she has to accept the ravioli and forget the beefsteak (can you conjecture the subtext even if you haven't seen the movie yet?), on the condition that she could hardly endure the loneliness, which has been mercilessly amplified for a partner-less tourist, in a city like Venice.What could happen between Jane and Renato? As in the scene where Renato is trying to reach a floating gardenia, their denouement is foreshadowed and in Lean's slick illustration, it recurs to hone up the climatic arrivederci. An interlude of both sides, Hepburn bolsters up steadily as the emotional core of the film, and Brazzi charms, confronts, coerces and unyieldingly courts the balking Jane to a sweet surrender, the common pitfalls for a tourist play out a shade too neatly, firstly, questioning the authenticity of the antique you have just purchased; secondly, resisting the persistent hawking from the local, even if he is as cherubic as the boy Mauro (Autiero), you can generously dole out a cigarette, tip him for being a useful guide, but don't buy anything he is offering, unless he is willingly to give it to you as a parting gift; then finally, doubting the marital status of your charming wooer, and don't be shock to learn that he is unhappily married. When the summer is vanishing, a real smart girl (in America, any woman under 50 can be referred as a girl, says Jane) should know how to part ways, at least the tears are real, don't overstay your welcome, it is a great advice to every tourist who needs to find something special to reinforce one's frame- of-mind, most of the time, travelling only serves to spur us to go back home sooner.

Hepburn is either too old and unattractive or Brazzi to young and refined (even though he's not very prosperous, we later find out) to make their relationship in this film believable. Brazzi acts as someone commented here more like a predator than as a man in need of love, but then again we never learn much about either character. Was Hepburn supposed to be a virgin? Why does everyone keep calling Hepburn signorina, even when she's with Brazzi? Was Brazzi really feeling lonely and couldn't find a pretty young Italian or tourist girl (he's quite a handsome fellow, you know) and was Hepburn the best he could get? Does he dig older American women (it seems he does)? It also seems he wanted to keep Hepburn but as a mistress, an arrangement she clearly would have refused, but this is never discussed during the abrupt ending. This film has some things in common with Lean's other doomed-from-the start romantic film "Brief Encounter", with trains as a motif. BTW, it seems things have changed plenty since 1955 given that today a woman in Venice I don't think would feel safe walking the city alone, specially at night. All in all, this a very dated, miscast, unbelievable, yet wonderfully photographed film.