Summertime

Summertime (1955) is David Lean's romance starring Katharine Hepburn, and you can watch online on iFILM. Jane Hudson, a middle-aged secretary from Ohio, has saved for years to see Venice — and she goes alone.

The city dazzles; the loneliness only sharpens. Jane films the canals on her home movie camera, eats dinner by herself, insists she's having a wonderful time. Then, in a café on the Piazza San Marco, an antiques dealer named Renato notices her — charming, Italian, and married, nothing like the great love she once imagined. Hepburn plays a woman terrified of her own happiness; the performance earned her an Academy Award nomination, and it ranks among her most delicate.

Lean shoots Venice as a character in its own right — water, light, the crowd along the quay. Lawrence of Arabia and Doctor Zhivago were still years off, but his feel for space is already unmistakable. One for viewers who like grown-up films about late, imperfect love. Stream Summertime (1955) online on iFILM.