A Place for Lovers

A Place for Lovers
A Place for Lovers
	Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Vittorio De Sica
Written by	Brunello Rondi (play); Julian Zimet; Peter Baldwin; Ennio De Concini; Tonino Guerra; Cesare Zavattini;
Produced by	Arthur Cohn; Carlo Ponti;
Starring	Faye Dunaway; Marcello Mastroianni;
Cinematography	Pasqualino De Santis
Edited by	Adriana Novelli
Music by	Manuel De Sica; Lee Konitz;
Production; companies	Compagnia Cinematografica Champion; Les Films Concordia;
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release dates	19 December 1968 (Italy); 17 September 1969 (France);
Running time	88 minutes
Countries	Italy; France;
Languages	Italian; English;

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

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] It is considered to be one of the worst films ever made.

Plot

Fashion designer Julia is tired of living because she is suffering from malignant cancer. When she leaves for her last holiday in Cortina d'Ampezzo, she meets the vital Valerio. The two fall in love instantly, but Julia does not reveal her secret to Valerio. When Valerio learns that she's dying, he pretends to know nothing, continuing the love affair until the end.

Cast

Faye Dunaway as Julia
Marcello Mastroianni as Valerio
Caroline Mortimer as Maggie
Enrico Simonetti as party host
Karin Eugh as Griselda
Esmeralda Ruspoli as attorney's wife
Yvonne Gilbert as Marie
Mirella Pamphili as party guest
David Archell
Martha Buckman

Soundtrack

Ella Fitzgerald provides two songs: the title song and "Lonely Is." Both songs may be found on the Verve release Jukebox Ella: The Complete Verve Singles, Vol. 1.^[3]

Reception

A Place for Lovers 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!"^[4] and Charles Champlin of the Los Angeles Times referred to it as "the worst movie I have seen all year and possibly since 1926."^[5] Rex Reed wrote that the film "[l]ooks 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."^[6] Critic Manny Farber stated that "one of the best laughs is watching Dunaway working on the subject of despair."^[7]

The film is widely considered among the worst 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 edition of Vanity Fair included it on its list of the 20 worst films.^[8]