A Little Romance (1979)
Grade: 59
While on a field trip with schoolmates to a movie studio in France, Daniel (Thelonious Bernard) meets Lauren (Dianne Ladd), who has been taken there by actress Kay King (Sally Kellerman). Both Bernard and Ladd are barely into their teens, and they have something else in common: they're very smart and virtually friendless. They connect, and begin arranging furtive dates behind their parents' back.
For Ladd's birthday, a party for her has long been arranged. But her own mother forgets about this and gives a wrap party for her latest picture on the same day. Ladd and her friends, one of whom is Bernard, are relegated to her room, which is just as well since they evade parental supervision, drink champagne, and dance closely. Leaving her room, Bernard runs into the jerk director, who makes a public snide remark about his scoring with Ladd. Bernard punches the director in the stomach and demands an apology. This puts Bernard on Kellerman's blacklist, and Ladd is told she cannot see him again. Which she does anyway.
Kellerman has been married three times. Current husband Richard (Arthur Hill) is patient but still frustrated with her cavorting with her latest film's director. Good news (for him) comes when his company informs him that he will be transferred from France to Houston at the end of the month. Kellerman isn't happy about the coming move. Even less so is Ladd.
While hanging in the park, Bernard accidentally knocks down an elderly gentleman (Laurence Olivier). Bernard and Ladd help him up and are then treated to lunch, with Olivier telling lies and tall tales to impress them. Ladd believes the stories, but more worldly Bernard is suspicious.
One of Olivier's stories is that lovers who kiss in a gondola in a Venice under a certain bridge at sunset when church bells are tolling will love each forever. Ladd takes this story to heart and becomes obsessed at fulfulling this destiny with Bernard.
Tbey need money for the trip, and go to the racetrack with Olivier to win it. Bernard's horse loses the race, but Olivier switches bets and wins big. (It turns out that Olivier is a con artist and pickpocket, and he stole the money).
Olivier, for some reason interested in getting himself and his new friends in endless trouble for the sake of a first crush, helps Bernard and Ladd run away from home, putting them on a train to Italy. The kid's parents get wind of the scheme and go to Italy to retrieve them. Ladd's pretty face is in the newspaper as a missing child. To avoid capture, Bernard, Ladd and Olivier join a bicycle race, which appears to be a plot device to have Olivier crash his bike.
Bernard and Ladd after some further difficulty manage to kiss in a gondola under that bridge at sunset with the church bells tolling. Olivier and the lovesick teens are caught and return to France. On the day that Ladd must return to the states, Ladd sees Bernard and Olivier (who curiously is not in jail) and has a tearjerker parting.
http://members.tripod.com/~Brian_Koller/movies.html
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews