The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

source: The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Trailer—The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Like most of his stuff on screen it all boils down to whether or not you're a Tennessee fan. If you are, like I am, then you'll watch, fascinatedly, as Karen Stone sinks deeper and deeper into moral depravity. It really is like watching a quicksand victim. You're powerless to help but you cannot look away, either. And making the tawdry spectacle all the more fun is Vivien Leigh giving one of her four greatest movie performances, a wonderful turn by Lotte Lenya as perhaps the most odious procuress ever put on film and Warren Beatty managing somehow to triumph over his Rent A Roman accent and channel the insecurity as well as the arrogance of a gigolo. So enjoy and don't worry overmuch that the director is Jose Quintero rather than, say, Joseph Losey or Vincente Minnelli, as the auteurists wished. It's Tennessee transposed to the Spanish Steps and it's one hell of a guilty pleasure. Give it a B.

I have to disagree with the comments that Warren Beatty made this movie. I thought his Italian accent was poor and most of the time he sits and pouts. Vivien Leigh made this movie for me. She related to Karen Stone because at the time she was a manic depressive and was receiving shock treatments. This role is very similar to Blanche Dubois and Mary Treadwell. I've read the novella by Tennessee Williams and the movie does make a very good adaptation of it. The cinematography is beautiful and so is the costuming.

Lugubrious adaptation of a Tennessee Williams short wants very much to be daring and adult, but comes off as tepid instead. Vivien Leigh is certainly well-cast as the recently-widowed, faded screen actress approaching fifty who, while residing in Rome, falls for a handsome gigolo. It's a slow, heavy-going soaper with extremely moody characters. Warren Beatty is pitilessly miscast as the Italian stud (though his wavering accent is good for a few laughs). The pacing does pick up after a deadly first hour, the cinematography is rich and the production has some sparkle, but otherwise there's no sting in this "Roman Spring". Remade as a 2003 TV movie featuring Helen Mirren in the lead. ** from ****

Vivien Leigh plays the aging, isolated Mrs. Stone with a tragic grace and beauty that only she could bring to this exquisite, lyrical film of Tennessee Williams' haunting tale of the human need of permanence in a transitory world. (I remember reading Williams' Memoirs in which he says that this was his favorite film made from his work.) It is only now that I've attained Mrs. Stone's age that I've really come to understand the "drifting" that is portrayed here. Lotte Lenya is also brilliant in the role of the Contessa.Lenya was nominated for the Academy Award as "Best Supporting Actress" for this role, and she should have won. She is unctuous, smarmy, and brilliant. Vivien Leigh should also have been nominated, for her alienated, unfulfilled, sad ex-star. She gave another excellent performance-- an interesting bookend to her magnificent Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the other of Tennessee Williams' "lost" ladies she immortalized on the screen.