Karen Stone (Vivien Leigh) is a flower in peril drifting down an empty river. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is a romance devoid of love. Mrs. Stone, an American stage actress with a crumbling career was traveling with her aging, rich husband. On the plane, he dies of a heart attack.

Stone drifts on and rents a palazzo in Rome. Vulnerable and wilted, this heroine falls prey to a sneering Italian gigolo, Paolo (Warren Beaty) and his pimp The Contessa (Lotte Lenya). Stone becomes obsessed with Paolo, an artifice of devotion. The concoction of unrequited love, humiliation and despair makes this film a fascinating melodrama.

The set says “luxury” everywhere from the Italian palazzos to the extravagant costumes. Outside of the production set, merit is riddled in layers of humiliation, sex and cruelty. This isn’t a woman walking home with butterflies of budding romance, this is a woman walking home being followed by the angel of death.

This screenplay was based on a Tennesee Williams novel and it explores the idea of dependance on men, relationship between sex and death and delusional versions of reality.  Stone is part of the Innocence Abroad series at the Harvard Film Archive (HFA) meant to explore, “Americans in Europe in the 1950s, but the Europe on view is not a real or recognizable place,” according to the HFA website.  Stone represents American naivety in Europe. She is fooled by the moral corruption of Paolo, Contessa and Italian decadence.

Spring is worth seeing if you are looking for a film with depth, despair and deceit. It keeps you intrigued from start to finish because just when you think Mrs. Stone might be having a bad dream, she wakes to a nightmare.

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone
1961
dir. José Quintero
104 min
Part of the ongoing series, Innocence Abroad, featuring films about Americans overseas in the 1950s.