The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone

Warren Beatty's second film of 1961 was The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone, and it almost derailed his career. Based on a novella by Tennessee Williams, and directed by acclaimed stage director Jose Quintero, the film did not receive good reviews, and Beatty was so disheartened that he thought about quitting acting.

I found it to be fairly interesting, if only because it is typical Williams. Once again he has made the stand-in for himself a woman steeped in loneliness. She is Karen Stone (Vivien Leigh), an actress who, after a disastrous turn as Rosalind in As You Like It (her straight-talking friend, Coral Browne, tells her the only problem is that she's too old for the part), gives up acting and heads to Rome on a vacation with her husband. He dies of a heart attack on the plane, but she stays in Rome and makes it her home.

We then see a kind of seamy underbelly of the social set in that city. A noblewoman of some sort (she calls herself a Contessa), played by Lotte Lenya, serves as a kind of pimp, arranging beautiful young men with lonely American widows, splitting whatever baubles they received fifty-fifty. One of her stable is Paolo, played by Beatty, but Leigh sees right through it and has no interest. Beatty persists, and eventually the two form a real relationship, and much to his dismay, he falls in love with her.

Meanwhile, there is a mysterious young man of the streets who constantly follows Leigh. We never really know who he is, but after her relationship with Beatty has a sudden and sorrowful end, she reaches out to the young stalker, in an act that can be seen as overly romantic or subtly suicidal.

Perhaps the critics of 1961 were shocked by such a casual view of gigolos, but today this doesn't seem so shocking, and I was intrigued by the characters, particularly Leigh, Beatty, and Lenye. The latter is really something of a shark in couture, and Lenya was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar. Beatty, while convincing no one he's Italian, at least had the laziness of a gigolo down, and when he turns on Leigh it is shocking and forceful. But this is Leigh's picture, and the great actress, who had recently gone through a divorce with Laurence Olivier, is wonderful as a woman determined to have a relationship with a younger man on her terms.

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is well worth the time for Williams' fans and anyone else interested in a well-done character study.