williwaw When Vivien Leigh died the New York Times gave her death front page news. Ironically, this magnificent actress and great beauty had a short career in films and a rather short life.As we all know Ms. Leigh conquered Hollywood with her Scarlett O Hara beating out Jean Arthur, Paulette Goddard, Susan Hayward and just about every major female star for the role of the Century. Ms. Leigh won an Oscar for her performance and another one as her peerless Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire. Jack Warner thankfully bankrolled this film shot in Europe. One sees a magical artist at work. The shame of it all is that along with Ship of Fools were Ms. Leigh's last films. Warren Beatty does a nice job as the Gigolo and the film is recommended most of all for a supreme actress Vivien Leigh.

Mikel3 This is a sad film about a beautiful woman who believes only youth matters. She equates aging with a fading ability to be loved. Perhaps this really is how aging actresses feel. After all, sadly, many only get parts based on their beauty and youth more than talent. Once they get older they feel useless and unloved. She has wealth and fame even a still impressive beauty, still that is not enough. She is vain, she must have youth too. Perhaps she also feels her youth was wasted on a much older husband. She looks for youth/love in the wrong places now. Places she knows are wrong. She lets obviously seedy characters take advantage of her, not because she was naive, it was because she didn't care. She's experienced enough to have known better in fact she did know better so did her friends. It's hard to sympathize with Mrs. Stone in this movie. We still do. All the warning signs are there for her, still she insists on driving off that cliff ahead eyes wide open to it. That said Vivian Leigh is wonderful in this role and makes the film well worth seeing. Her talents make her character Mrs. Stone and the film believable. I've read that some feel Warren Beatty was miscast in his part. Personally I thought he did fine for this early point in his career. No he was not on a par with Ms. Leigh's talent, still he pulled off the character well. The directing, the photography and secondary characters are all excellent. The feeling of sadness and impending tragedy hangs over the film like a fog. It's personified by Mrs. Stones stalker. The ending is left open for interpretation. Some people might find the final scene annoying, I found the ending appropriate. I won't go into that here. I'll save it for the discussion board to avoid spoilers. I'll just say...the ending was chilling !

blanche-2 Vivien Leigh is an aging beauty living in Italy in "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," based on a novel by Tennessee Williams. Director Jose Quintero took on the job of directing and he does a fine job with quite a cast, which includes Warren Beatty, Lotte Lenya, Coral Browne, Jill St. John, and Cleo Laine.Leigh plays Karen Stone, an actress pushing 50 who travels to Rome with her elderly husband. Her husband has a fatal heart attack on the plane, and Karen doesn't return to the states. Instead, she stays in Rome and leases a gorgeous apartment. She is visited by Contessa Magda Terribili-Gonzales (Lotte Lenya) who, for a cut, pimps out gigolos to older women. Karen is hooked up with Paolo (Warren Beatty) and soon finds herself falling for him.Vivien Leigh looks beautiful, but haunted, and she's perfect for this role, which dovetails her own life, as she Olivier told the manic-depressive actress that he was going to marry Joan Plowright around the time of the filming.Warren Beatty doesn't have much of an Italian accent or, in my own opinion, much presence. He looks good, which is most important.A very good, haunting movie.

ScenicRoute Worth seeing as a gay lib film. It is "Tod in Venedig" updated to 1960 Rome, and so that the plagiarism is not so obvious, the old queen's sex is changed. Otherwise it is Mr Mann's storyline verbatim.Lush lush colors and a great window on the decadence of Rome ready to be renewed (albeit while damaging the Church) via Vatican II.And Warren Beatty at 22? Like Splendor in the Grass, he is all dick, all the time. His acting is decent, but as an Italian, he is laughable. And I guess that is how he lived his life. Be careful what you wish for...As for Leigh, clearly she was playing her mentally ill self, and she does a fine job.Finally, the movie is worth seeing for Lenya brilliant performance as a procuress. As she sings in the 1950s version of The Three Penny Opera: "What keeps a man alive? He lives on others? As long as he can forget, they're his brothers..."