The Battle of the Villa Fiorita

Delmer Daves created some of the great lush romantic dramas of my youth such as A Summer Place, Parrish and Rome Adventure all starring Troy Donahue, and then also at WB directed Spencer's Mountain starring Henry Fonda and Maureen O Hara. Daves then cast the beautiful Maureen in this film shot in Italy. In her book 'Tis Herself Ms. O Hara said she was simply aghast when seeing the rushes she noted that her face was shot with shadows. At first I did not believe a major star would be photographed against her wishes and that the veteran renowned cinematographer Oswald Morris held a grudge against the lovely star because of a football bet! Whether this is true or not, the fact is that La O Hara one of the cinema's great beauties has some scenes that back up her complaint.

I thought the film was fine and the casting of Ms. O Hara with Rosonna Brazzi who was in Daves' Rome Adventure as well- also very fine. The location shot were gorgeous.

Dissatisfied British housewife Moira Clavering (Maureen O'Hara) falls for visiting Italian pianist Lorenzo Tasara (Rossano Brazzi). She leaves her cold husband and their two children. She decides to join Lorenzo on his Italian estate. The kids go to break them up with help from Lorenzo's daughter (Olivia Hussey).

This is like a twisted Disney kids' movie. I'm making it sound better than it is. First, this starts with Moira and sells the audience on this affair. The kids' journey has some wish fulfillment as they travel by themselves. It is completely unreasonable. Then the trip turns into a guilt trip and I am really annoyed at the boy. The two girls are more compelling. There is some good drama between them. I'm not saying that I want this affair or not. Lorenzo gets worst. I certainly wouldn't push her back to her husband. All paths are rather muddy. I have a solution, but it's a different time. The locations are lovely. The movie is problematic.

Watching The Battle Of The Villa Fiorita I was struck at how similar this was to another Maureen O'Hara film, The Parent Trap. This is a great example of how one can take the same plot situation and treat it either comically or quite seriously. In this case the comic treatment was far better.

Maureen O'Hara is a 40 something wife and mother who experiences a mid life crisis. While part of a welcoming committee for concert pianist Rossano Brazzi the two of them begin an affair that breaks up Maureen's home and hearth, the one she shares with husband Richard Todd and children Martin Stephens and Elizabeth Dear.

Todd's not happy, but willing to let things go. But the kids are determined one way or another that the Brazzi/O'Hara marriage will never take place. Curiously enough when they hitchhike to Italy they find a willing ally in Olivia Hussey who is Brazzi's daughter. Brazzi is a widower, still Hussey wants no one taking her mother's place.

The kids use all kinds of wiles and strategies to break their parents up. Nothing with any parent trap like cuteness, this film never would have been done for Disney. It ends with an uncertain future for all concerned.

If there's a message here it misses the mark considerably. If you think you'll be seeing Maureen O'Hara after reading the description in another Parent Trap than The Battle Of The Villa Fiorita will disappoint you greatly. It doesn't quite cut it as drama either.

Maureen O'Hara and Rossano Brazzi are glowing middle-agers in love whose romance is thwarted by their respective pre-teen children: his haughty Italian daughter and her stubborn, bratty British boy and girl. Stories of kids meddling in their parents' love lives are usually successful if played as comedy; here, the melodrama gets to be too much, with the adults continually exasperated and the kids unlikably victorious in their immature pranks. The familial arguments which arise are probably realistic, but here they dissipate interest in the movie, particularly since the love affair between the grown-ups is much more interesting than the finger-pointing. ** from ****

I liked the movie mainly for the picturesque views of the lake,( Lake Como?) the surrounding area, and scenes of the villa itself. So much of the architectural style is remincient of the paintings done by Maxfield Parrish in the early part of the 20th century. You sort of have to look around the actors in the various scenes to get glimpses of ornate retaining walls, stairs and elaborate ballusters around and into the lake. There is an elegance about marble (or granite, or just old concrete?) stairs going down into the water. And old world gardens full of flowers. Itn reminds me of the book "Italian Villas and their Gardens" by Edith Wharton, 1907, Which was illustrated by Parrish. And yes, the children in the movie steal the show; All three have a much stronger determination to achieve their goals than do any of the adults. It's a good story line , dated for the sixties. And is'nt this Olivia Hussey's first feature film?