THREE COINS IN THE FOUNTAIN (1954)

How this piece of drippy romantic pap ever got nominated for an Academy Award for best picture is beyond me. It won an Oscar for cinematography, which is at least vaguely understandable since the Cinemascope compositions, many of which were shot on location, are lovely to look at. But what you have to watch and listen to while enjoying the scenery is pretty dreadful. Maggie McNamara plays a young woman newly arrived in Rome to take a job as a secretary, replacing Jean Peters, who will be going back to the States in a few days. The two room with the slightly older and wiser Dorothy McGuire, herself a secretary to a famous writer (Clifton Webb)--think of the relationship between Bette Davis and Monty Woolley in THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER, but with virtually no charm, chemistry, or wit. We follow the women's romantic complications as they play out over several days. Peters defies company policy and dates local translator Rosanno Brazzi, leading to his dismissal; they live "in sin" for a day and a half or so, but Brazzi won't commit to her because he's lost his job and cannot support her. McNamara gets an itch for a handsome playboy prince (Louis Jourdan) and pretends to have lots in common with him in order to get him interested in her. McGuire, supposedly a drab old maid, but looking only a couple of years older and just a tiny bit less lovely than Peters, has pined away for Webb for years and her decision to leave him to go back the U.S. pushes the effete Webb, who discovers he only has a short while left to live, into proposing a marriage of friendship (the character is not officially "gay," but, c'mon, it's Clifton Webb!). All three relationships seem headed for disaster, but in a truly dopey and completely unexplained ending, all three women get the men they want, and apparently get to stay in photogenic Rome as a bonus. The acting is OK, with McGuire and Jourdan taking top honors, but it's the slipshod writing that sinks the movie. Almost nothing that happens rings true to life, and the "fairy tale" aspects of McNamara's story are particularly badly handled. When they all meet at the famous fountain of Trevi in the last scene, we have no idea why everything is suddenly working out for them, when just a few hours before, they were all practically ready to throw themselves off of balconies. Good looking, but empty headed, and a waste of the talented McGuire and the sexy Jourdan. [FMC]