evening1 A film that beautifully captures the insecurity of aging in a world in which everyone has his price.Vivien Leigh is the glamorous actress who possesses money but little else as she watches her looks and job prospects fading. Against her better judgment, she allows herself to fall in love with Warren Beatty's Paolo. Every second spent with this seductive gigolo only postpones the anguish of the suicidally depressed diva.Running counterpoint to Mrs. Stone's painful "drift" is the derelict lying in wait at the base of her steps -- her own private carrion vulture.This movie ends on a pathetic and troubling note. While one feels for Mrs. Stone, one is also hugely relieved not to have to spend more time with the loathsome procuress played by Lotte Lenya.

edwagreen In her mid and later movie career, Vivien Leigh seemed to thrive in fading woman roles. Naturally, we think of her as Blanche, in 1951's "A Streetcar Named Desire." Her last film "Ship of Fools," she was also a fading starlet and 1961's "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone," she played a washed up actress desperately searching for a way out of her loneliness with a younger man, Warren Beatty with a great Italian accent.The 'Roman Spring' basically fails because it could be viewed in comic terms. Lotte Lenya's supporting Oscar nomination performance as a woman in charge of matching up young gigolos with older women is comic at best. I would have laughed heartily if I didn't realize that Lenya tried to be serious. As the Contessa looking for a quick buck, Lenya constantly came across as a Brooklyn or Bronx yenta constantly on the phone to drum up business. Lenya may have been talented but she was extremely homely. That ugliness served her better as Rosa Klebb in "To Russia With Love."Leigh's portrayal of Karen Stone presented one very sick woman with emotional ups and downs. The film is depressing at best, with an ending suitable for a Hitchcock thriller.

Casadena "Are you trying to--touch me, Contessa?" No one who sees Vivien Leigh on film can remain unmoved by her for long, if they are sensitive to beauty. Or pain. Despite whatever faults it may reveal to some, this film is a truly beautiful representation of the singularly tormented art of a hypnotically compelling actress. Watch her eyes in the introductory scene on the sofa, as she glances at the Contessa and her boy, over the smoke rising from her filter-less cigarette. Or at the villa lunch party--is anyone more graceful on screen with a fork and an awkward plate of food in their hands while managing to consume, register taste, swallow, and speak "sophisticated" dialog in the best postwar style, in a foreign (American) accent? Watch her in the café scene with Lotte Lenya's voracious pimp zeroing in on its prey: Leigh was tormented by the word "Beautiful"--friends and fans called her that to her face almost involuntarily, yet she couldn't tell them it drove her crazy, that her English convent school upbringing made that word synonymous with "shallow", at least to her way of thinking--but what other word describes her? Vivien Leigh casts a spell on all who see her, long after her death from tuberculosis in 1967. Oh, and the 1961 Lincoln convertible is as beautiful as any of the "Roman" scenery in the background; it is the perfect choice for Karen Stone's car.

Jay Raskin I'm a Tennessee Williams fan, a Vivien Leigh fan, a Warren Beatty fan, and a Lotte Lenya fan, so this movie was a joy for me. Heck, I even became a Jill St. John fan watching her in this.Being in my 50's, I've just started experiencing the horrible feeling that one is no longer the object of the sexual gaze that one was before. I think the film captures a sense of that beautifully. It is a feeling that transcends gender, so the film doesn't lose anything by having a heterosexual female lead instead of a homosexual male lead. Although, I'm sure Williams would have chosen to make the personal story about a homosexual male like himself if he had the choice.Vivien Leigh played in amazingly few films. She starred in four or five before "Gone With the Wind" in 1939, and nine afterwards. However, from 1942 to 1965, she only did six films, about one every four years. Strange that one of the most famous actresses in the world during that entire period should only choose to make six films. Consider that Katherine Hepburn did six films between 1942 and 1946 and 18 films over the same time period.Everybody agrees that Vivien is great in the film, giving a beautiful measured and restrained, yet effective performance as the drifting Mrs. Stone. The big disagreement is over Warren Beatty. Some people can't get over his Italian accent, but that isn't necessarily because it is a bad Italian accent, it is because we know he is not Italian. In 1962, when this was being filmed, his first movie "Splendor in the Grass" had not been released. I suspect if "Splendor" had flopped and Beatty had quit movies after this film, everybody would be asking, "Whatever happened to that handsome Italian kid who played opposite Vivien Leigh in Mrs. Stone?" Lotte Lenya was terrific in this and got a deserved academy aware nomination. Sadly, Her movie career essentially consists of "Three Penny Opera" made in 1931, this movie and "From Russia With Love". This is another example of a great actress being totally ignored by Hollywood.Jill St. John plays a small part as a starlet and rival to Leigh for Beatty's affection. She is fine in the role. She also starred in a James Bond movie "Diamonds are Forever" about a decade later.The photography is quite exquisite at moments, looking quite Felliniesque here and there and sparse elsewhere.This is a movie about a successful woman drifting into old age, and exploiting young men for sex, while a young man drifts into the world of exploiting older women for their money. It is sad, but funny and beautiful at moments.