Taglines: They want to be alone – TOGETHER!
Come September movie storyline. Wealthy New York based businessman Robert Talbot owns a villa in Italy where he has spent every September since the war with his Italian girlfriend, Lisa Fellini. But the people associated with the villa feel Robert has taken them for granted. Lisa would really like to marry Robert, but he seems content to continue with these annual month long trysts, as he has never even broached the subject of marrying her.
As such, she has accepted the marriage proposal of a staid Brit named Spencer, which she plans to tell Robert on his next September visit simply by being a newly married woman. And his villa servants, led by his majordomo, Maurice Clavell, believe he thinks the villa is up kept by magic. What they have done for the past six years without his knowledge is to open up the villa as a four star hotel for the eleven months he isn’t there, using the money to make improvements to the villa, and pocketing the rest. Complications ensue when Robert unexpectedly comes to Italy in July for a business trip, which catches both Lisa and Maurice by surprise.
Although Robert does find out about the hotel, it is more difficult both to fire Maurice and the servants, and get rid of the current guests than he would like, those guests which include Margaret Allison and her six American charges. Margaret, with who Maurice is mutually smitten as she is under the impression that he owns the hotel, has regularly chaperoned a group of American teenaged girls to Italy. And Lisa decides to spend this one last year with Robert before getting married to and without telling him about Spencer.
Out of this situation erupts a battle of the sexes and of the generations as Robert, while Margaret is incapacitated and while they are all on his property, feels he needs to protect the girls, especially from a group of four brash American college boys who have also come to stay, he telling the girls one thing while dealing with Lisa in a whole different manner. And the boys feel they need to use their youth to outlast Robert in his games of protecting the girls from them.
Come September is a 1961 romantic comedy film directed by Robert Mulligan and starring Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee, Joel Grey, Bobby Darin, Walter Slezak, Brenda de Banzie, Rossana Rory, Ronald Howard, Joel Grey, Joan Freeman and Ronnie Haran.
Screenwriters Stanley Shapiro and Maurice Richlin started working on the script in late 1959. While the film was in pre-production, Shapiro said in an interview: “I write all day at my office from 8:30 until 6:00, then have dinner and go home and spend two or three hours fixing, polishing or rewriting the day’s output.”[2]
In early 1960, it was announced Rock Hudson and Gina Lollobrigida were set to star. Before Lollobrigida’s participation was confirmed, Marilyn Monroe was rumored to be cast. Along with the cast revelations, it was immediately announced production was not set to start until later, because Hudson was still working on the film The Last Sunset (1961) and Lollobrigida had commitments to Go Naked in the World (1961) and Lady L (1965). In June 1960, Robert Mulligan signed on as the film’s director.
A month later, singer Bobby Darin was announced to make his film debut in Come September. He and Dee met for the first time on location, fell in love and married on December 1, 1960. The making of Come September is portrayed in the Bobby Darin biopic Beyond the Sea (starring Kevin Spacey as Darin and Kate Bosworth as Dee). Initially, Lollobrigida was reluctant because she was not enthusiastic about returning to Italy, where the film was shot. In an interview, she mentioned accepting the role because it allowed her to work with Hudson. Furthermore, she explained: “It’s a comedy that can only be made in Italy.”
Come September (1961)
Directed by: Robert Mulligan
Starring: Rock Hudson, Gina Lollobrigida, Sandra Dee, Joel Grey, Bobby Darin, Walter Slezak, Brenda de Banzie, Rossana Rory, Ronald Howard, Joel Grey, Joan Freeman, Ronnie Haran
Screenplay by: Stanley Shapiro, Maurice Richlin, Stanley Roberts, Robert Russell
Cinematography by: William H. Daniels
Film Editing by: Russell F. Schoengarth
Costume Design by: Morton Haack
Set Decoration by: John P. Austin
Art Direction by: Henry Bumstead
Music by: Hans J. Salter, Russell Garcia
MPAA Rating: None.
Distributed by: Universal Pictures
Release Date: August 9, 1961
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