Memorable, bitter-sweet love affair, directed by David Lean. He coaxes a fine performance from Katharine Hepburn, endearingly vulnerable as the plain, middle-ageing secretary who goes to Venice on holiday and finds herself improbably caught up in an idyllic romance with a (married) antiques dealer, played by Rossano Brazzi at his most concerned. Jack Hildyard's majestic Eastman Colour photography of Venice and its environs adds immeasurably to the flavour. There's an endearing waif who follows Hepburn everywhere, and her famous tumble into the canal. It's a film that has in abundance what many of Lean's bigger-scale films, however excellent, lack: charm.

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