A Little Romance

Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
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Product Description

Sandwiched between Slap Shot and The World According to Garp, George Roy Hill made this effervescent film about first love. A sharp American girl (Diane Lane, in her debut) and a film-loving Parisian boy (Thelonious Bernard, in his only film) fall innocently in love. When the girl's zealous mother (Sally Kellerman) goes ballistic, the young couple fall under the spell of a curious gentleman (none other than Laurence Olivier), who plants the seed to make their love last forever: to kiss under a Venetian bridge at sunset. As the love story becomes an adventure with the young lovers crossing France and Italy, Allan Burns's Oscar-nominated script and Hill's deft touch turn this into a romance for the ages and a movie to smile about. George Delerue's Oscar-winning score and the picturesque European scenery don't hurt either. Ages 7 and older. --Doug Thomas

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Customer Reviews

As wonderful as Venice at sunset when the bells toll...

Review Date: February 5, 2003

Reviewer: Susan E. Neill, Alexandria, VA USA

This has to be one of the most under-appreciated movies of all time. George Roy Hill had directed two of the best comedies of the late 60s-early 70s, Butch Cassidy... and The Sting. Then he made this gem...

Two lonely teenagers in Paris, a street-wise French boy and a sheltered American girl, both of whom are hiding their genius IQs in order to fit in, fall in love and realize how lucky they are to have found each other. With help from a romantic old con artist (Lawrence Olivier at his best; he should have done more comedy), they run away to Venice to make their love last forever. They have a wonderful adventure, and along the way, Hill pokes fun at American tourists, pays tongue-in-cheek homage to his own great movies, and shows us how beautiful life can be when you're different.

Endearing tale of young love... Excellent DVD

Review Date: June 14, 2005

Reviewer: dooby,

This endearing tale of young love will bring smiles and tears to both young and old alike. It features two bright, innocent 13 year olds, an American girl and a French boy who fall in love. When her mother disapproves, the pair run off with the aid of an elderly gentleman who take them across Europe for their romantic tryst under the Bridge of Sighs in the ancient city of Venice. Along the way we get to take in the sights of Paris and Verona before finally ending in the magnificient Piazza San Marco and on the gondolas plying the canals of the old city. It features a very young Diane Lane in her screen debut at age 13 and the venerable Lord Laurence Olivier who famously hailed his young costar as "the next Grace Kelly".

The lovely score by George Delerue won an Academy Award but much of the most memorable music within the movie is actually by Antonio Vivaldi. The loveliest piece, titled "Love's Not Like That", which is used throughout the movie to accompany the young lovers is actually the Largo from Vivaldi's Lute Concerto in D, RV 93.

This 2005 release is the same DVD released in January 2003. The film has been beautifully transferred in its original theatrical aspect ratio of 2.35:1 (anamorphic), not 1.85:1 as stated at Amazon's website. Although there are occasional nicks on the print as befits its vintage (1979), it is a generally good and clean transfer with bright, natural colors and crisp images. Sound is a very basic 2.0 mono which although perfectly serviceable does not do true justice to the nuances of the lovely baroque music. Extras are pretty limited. There is an enagaging 7 minute look-back by Diane Lane on the making of the film and her reminiscences of her costars, especially of Lord Larry. There is a single theatrical trailer for the movie (also anamorphic). The rest of the extras consists of Production Notes, awards garnered and a Poster gallery. Even without any extras, the main feature alone is worth the price of the DVD, an unjustly neglected little masterpiece.

A beautiful gem of a movie

Review Date: December 7, 2003

Reviewer: Joseph L. Shipman,

I was sorry to have missed this when it came out (in 1979 when I was 18), then forgot about it for many years. The other day I saw a picture of Diane Lane, and remembered this movie, and decided it would be a good family film that my wife and 2 oldest kids (girl 12, boy 15) would enjoy.

It was indeed. I don't have much to add to the glowing reviews others have already given it here; I'll just note that

1) There are so many subtle grace notes that repeated viewings will be well repaid
2) It is not suitable for 10 and under, due to sexual references
3) I wish even more now that I'd seen "A Little Romance" when it came out, its existence in my memory would have enriched my life for the past 24 years

What really makes the movie a classic is bullseye performers by ALL the actors. The hardest kind of character for an actor to play is an extremely intelligent one, only very intelligent actors can do it, and the two leads are up to it. (Too bad the scriptwriter uses the word "etymological" once when he means "ontological", it is the kind of mistake Lauren would never have made, but this is the tiniest possible blemish, and no movie this rich can avoid having a handful of forgivable glitches).

I show this film every year to my first year French students

Review Date: December 18, 1998

Reviewer: rhaine@chaffey.org, Ontario, California, USA

The first time I saw this film was about twenty years ago, with my wife, eating pizza on a Friday night, in the English Department office, because we didn't have a VCR and the school did. We thoroughly enjoyed it; we cried and we kissed, just as Lauren and Daniel were kissing under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice, with the bells tolling in the "Campanile", at sunset, in a gondola. I don't know if the legend is true, but we still love each other very much, and hopefully will love each other forever. I show the film each year to my first year French students, because it is a great love story between an American girl and a French boy, and there is a lot of French culture to be learned from the film. I've probably seen it over fifty times, so I know most of the dialogue. There's just enough French language for them to understand, but not be overwhelmed. I look forward to every scene, but especially when the two young lovers finally make it to Venice with the help of Julius, played impeccably by Sir Laurence Olivier. My students, mostly 9th and 10th graders, cry a little bit inspite of themselves. Perhaps someday my wife and I will make it to Venice to see if the legend really is true!

Romantic young first love at its best

Review Date: June 22, 1999

Reviewer: cdkintz@aol.com, Tucker, Georgia

In 1980, my former college girlfriend called me and told be that I HAD to see this movie. She thought that the girl in the movie was me (and I am male) so I went out and purchased a ticket to the movie. Well she was right, the girl in the movie, a wonderful precocious 12 or 13 year old girl named Lauren was me about the time I started to college (at 15) when my old girlfriend met me. The movie is so wonderful, two adorable young but very bright children that meet and have so much in common but so little in common with other children their age. It is a wonderful endearing story of their entrance into the real world, of love and caring and loss. Their very adult wondering of whether there is someone exactly for them out there, and if they will meet and even if they will live at the same time really sounded like myself at that age. I showed the movie to my wife (yes I found that woman, the one for me) and she adores the movie, the music, the romance and of course Paris. We have been to Paris and walked the avenues and plan to go to Venice and kiss under the Bridge of Sighs at sunset. What a wonderful legend, even if only made up for the movie. I believe.

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