Summertime / The Happy Breed

SUMMERTIME, 1955, Janus Films, 100 min. Dir. David Lean. A lonely American spinster (Katharine Hepburn) succumbs to a passionate affair with a married Italian antique dealer (Rossano Brazzi). Lean insisted on shooting on location in Venice, and the result is a Technicolor valentine to the ancient city.

THIS HAPPY BREED, 1944, MGM Repertory, 115 min. David Lean's first full feature as sole director. Based on an acclaimed play by Noël Coward about a British family. Robert Newton (OLIVER TWIST) is cast against type as a middle-class father, with Celia Johnson (BRIEF ENCOUNTER) as his wife, aided by John Mills, Stanley Holloway and Lean's second wife, Kay Walsh.