THE ROMAN SPRING OF MRS STONE

US, 1961, 103 minutes, Colour.
Vivien Leigh, Warren Beatty, Lotte Lenya, Coral Browne, Jill St John, Jeremy Spenser.
Directed by Jose Quintero.

The Roman Spring of Mrs Stone is based on a story by Tennessee Williams (Streetcar Named Desire, Glass Menagerie). It was directed by stage director Jose Quintero and adapted for the screen by novelist and critic Gavin Lambert.

The film focuses on an actress approaching fifty, considered too old for a play she is about to act in. Critics and public are against her. Her older husband takes her to home for a holiday – and dies of a heart attack. Mrs Stone goes to visit a contessa who introduces her to a young man, a gigolo. They begin a relationship. The film looks at relationships between young and old, the ageing woman, the ambitious young man.

The film was a star vehicle for Vivien Leigh as Karen Stone. Warren Beatty, in one of his earliest films, the same year as Splendour in the Grass, is the young man. Kurt Weill's singing actress, Lotte Lenya, is the countess (and was to appear the next year as the villainess in From Russia With Love). The film has an interesting international cast, especially with Coral Browne and Jill St John.

The film was remade as a television movie in 2003 with Helen Mirren as Mrs Stone, French actor Olivier Martinez as the young man and Anne Bancroft as the countess.

1. The meaning and tones of the title and the various words? Rome, Spring season, Mrs Stone?

2. Comment on the use of colour, Roman locations, the atmosphere and climate of Rome, its exotic nature, international aspects, the immoral atmosphere of this kind of Rome? How well and convincingly did the film use this atmosphere?

3. The importance of having Vivien Leigh in the main role? Her style and impact? Warren Beatty at the beginning of his career?

4. How real did this story seem, how real the characters? How unreal was the film? The morality? The life of escape?

5. The importance of the opening, creating atmosphere, of Rome and its people? The audience observing all this, not feeling part of it, being attracted or repelled? How was this done by the film?

6. What kind of person was Karen Stone? Vivien Leigh's performance, the American ageing actress, the American background, the reality of age, As You LIe It, the need to escape from life, her needs, her wanting to be alone, how attractive a person, how sympathetic for the audience? Interest in her life and problems? How well did the film communicate the reality of Karen Stone's loneliness and needs?

7. The contrast with the countess? What kind of person? How was she presented? The film's attitude toward? her? Her role as a pimp, her wheedling for money, her place in society, her getting men and women for rich visitors, the picture of her at work? What was the main audience response to her? Judgement on her?

8. How did Paolo fit into this atmosphere? his Roman background, Italian background, pride, self-importance, his participation in this immoral world? His willingness to use people, get money, have an easy life? What attractive characteristics did he have? Was it credible that women would fall in love with him? Why? What attracted them? Did they know they were being used? Why could they not admit it if they did? His flirting with other women, his using and abusing Karen Stone, his walking off? What judgement did the film make on gigolos? Are they credible as people?

9. The dramatic significance of the young man following Mrs Stone? The day that he was photographed? As a kind of moral or immoral chorus for the film? The importance of the ending: the key, his entering the room, the smile? What judgement was being made on the whole situation by this sequence?

10. What picture of society did the film offer: Roman society, wealth, the rich visitors, their using the countess, their supplying their needs, the cafe life, the shops?

11. The themes of privacy, truth and deception, the influence of others in peoples life, humiliation?

12. The themes of love, friendship, being used, the abuse of personal relationships? What insight was given in this?

13. Comment on themes which were particularly significant for the film: Paulo with the countess, the sensuality of Paulo, his being bought clothes by Mrs Stone, the home movie sequence, the humiliation in the cafe?

14. How valuable for ordinary audiences are films of this kind of exotic world and situation?