Three Coins in the Fountain was the first CinemaScope picture to be shot overseas, and director Jean Negulesco maximizes every opportunity to showcase Italy’s scenic wonders.
Fairy tales rarely come so neatly packaged… and this one even features a bona fide prince! The blueprint is simple: Put three American women in a foreign location (in this case, Rome), follow them around as they visit all of the area’s iconic landmarks, give each a romance (preferably with a native), supply a few mild complications (but nothing dire enough to compete with or detract attention from the scenery and sights), and tie it all up with a requisite happy ending. Its enormous success not only earned a Best Picture Oscar nomination, but also spawned countless copycat films. Three Coins in the Fountain is the quintessential example of this type of frothy, escapist production. After all, isn’t taking people to places they’ve never been and exposing them to different lands and cultures really what movies are all about? Stunning images and a cast of attractive actors kept audiences engaged and satisfied their feelings of wanderlust. No one really cared if the films sacrificed meaty plots for local flavor.
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Such movies also helped lure audiences away from their televisions and back into theaters by offering something TV couldn’t – a gorgeous locale in brilliant color on a larger-than-life canvas. The advent of CinemaScope, which offered sweeping panoramic views on a massive wide screen, made the genre an even more attractive commodity, both visually and financially. The practice began in earnest in the early 1950s and really took off after the success of John Huston’s The African Queen.Īlmost instantly, the travelogue film was born. Occasionally, though, moguls would greenlight a location shoot for big-budget projects to really give viewers a you-are-there feel.
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Most of the time, movie studios would just recreate those places on their cavernous soundstages and use stock footage to fill in the atmospheric gaps. The rest of us had to rely on Hollywood to show us the sites, whether they be historic European capitals, exotic South Sea islands, or remote African outposts. Starring: Clifton Webb, Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters, Louis Jourdan, Maggie McNamara, Rossano Brazziīlu-ray Special Features: Audio commentary, newsreel, isolated score, theatrical trailerīefore the dawn of the jet age, overseas travel cost a pretty penny, making it a foray only the wealthy could afford. This lightweight romance about the affairs of a trio of American expatriates living la dolce vita may seem shockingly sexist today, but the Italian scenery and historical sites maintain their timeless beauty.
If you can’t make it to Rome or Venice anytime soon, check out Three Coins in the Fountain.
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