The first thing you have to ask yourself about this film is is it a travelogue about Rome or is it a a romance movie??? Eighty percent of the film is Troy Donahue and Suzanne Pleshette riding around Rome on a motor scooter while the camera pans all the historical sights in Rome. I have never learned so much about Rome all rolled up into one film!!! Troy Donahue, who was at the peak of his career in soap operas when this film was made gives another super soaper-doaper heart throb performance. Donahue was riding high with soapers like "Imitation of Life", "Parrish", "Susan Slade" and "A Summer Place"......the following year he was another hearthrob in the light headed "Palm Springs Weekend" with Stephanie Powers. In Rome Adventure Donahue is a student mired in Rome in a love mixup with the lovely Angie Dickinson and a young, very young Suzanne Pleshette. Who does he like better...sort of hard to figure at points in the film....Donahue runs around the entire film chasing both women. Rosanno Brazzi plays a very suave Italian gentlemen who is of wealth in Rome and tries to fall in love with Pleshette but he appears to be many years older than her.....it just wont work with a 20 year age difference!!! Substance wise this film did not give Brazzi the actor appeal he showed in "South Pacific"......in that film he was the hearthrob.....the famous "Al Di La" song rang out throughout the whole film and was a record hit in the US in 1962 from the movie soundtrack. All in all this film is a soaper special......teenage and young girls no doubt flocked to the theaters to see Donahue in 62 at the height of his career. Angie Dickinson had second fiddle in this film and you wonder how she liked playing second fiddle to Pleshette. The venerable Constance Ford, who usually plays a mother from hell is top notch as the owner of a book store in Rome where Pleshette gets a job....she was always a Delmer Daves favorite for his soap operas. Check out her voracious, aggressive dog..... This is a film that Warren Beatty probably could have played at the time too.....he and Donahue were top Hollywood hearthrobs at this time in the early 60s.....however, Beatty usually chose much more complex characters with mixed emotions like in "Splendor in the Grass" and "All Fall Down".......as for Rome Adventure cook up some popcorn and relax to a nice little love story from the early 60s when romance was more on the sweet side.
Review of Rome Adventure
