A Place for Lovers

A Place for Lovers (Italian: Amanti, French: Le Temps des amants) is a 1968 French-Italian romantic drama film directed by Vittorio De Sica, written by Brunello Rondi, Julian Zimet, Peter Baldwin, Ennio De Concini, Tonino Guerra, Cesare Zavattini based on the play Gli Amanti by Brunello Rondi and Renaldo Cabieri and distributed by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

A Place for Lovers
Theatrical release poster
Directed byVittorio De Sica
Produced by
Written by
Starring
Music by
CinematographyPasqualino De Santis
Edited byAdriana Novelli
Production
company
  • Compagnia Cinematografica Champion
  • Les Films Concordia
Distributed byMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date
  • 19 December 1968 (1968-12-19) (Italy)
  • 17 September 1969 (1969-09-17) (France)
Running time
88 minutes[1]
Country
  • Italy
  • France
Language
  • Italian
  • English

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]

Plot summary

The rich fashion designer 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!",[3] and Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times referred to it as "the worst movie I have seen all year and possibly since 1926."[4] Rex Reed wrote the film "Looks not so much directed as whittled to death." Time Magazine called the film "Woefully inept... Marcello Mastroianni displays all the zest of a man summoned up for tax evasion. The five scriptwriters who supposedly worked on the film must have spent enough time at the water-cooler to flood a camel." Katherine Caroll's review in The New York Daily News called the film "about as exciting to watch as a game of tiddly-winks."[5]

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] A Place for Lovers is widely considered to be one of the worst films of all time and was listed in the 1978 book The Fifty Worst Films of All Time, which called the film "a putrid tearjerker." The Italian Vanity Fair also included it on its list of the 20 worst movies ever.[6]

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References
  1. "A Place for Lovers". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 30 November 2014.
  2. New York Times/AllMovie Guide overview
  3. "A Place for Lovers Movie Review (1969) | Roger Ebert".
  4. Medved, Harry. "The Fifty Worst Films of All Time." Fawcett Columbine, 1978.
  5. "Place for Lovers | Review by Chris Tookey".
  6. Pellegrini, Francesca (25 February 2018). "I 20 film più brutti di sempre". Vanity Fair (in Italian). Retrieved 29 January 2019.
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