Three Coins In the Fountain

Director: Jean Negulesco Jean Negulesco

Overview

"Adapted by playwright John Patrick from a novel by famed globetrotter/filmmaker John H. Secondari, Three Coins in the Fountain offers the splendors of Rome in Technicolor, CinemaScope and Stereophonic Sounds. For all its lovely picture-postcard images, the film is at base a reworking of 20th Century-Fox' favorite plotline: three pretty girls on the prowl for husbands. The three lovelies, who toss their coins in the Trevi fountain and wish for romance, include Dorothy McGuire, Jean Peters and Maggie McNamara. Before the film is over, McGuire has won over her icy employer Clifton Webb; Peters has ""tamed"" roving-eyed Rossano Brazzi; and McNamara finds happiness with prince Louis Jourdan. Three Coins in the Fountain won two Academy Awards: ""Best Color Cinematography"" (Milton Krasner), and ""Best Song"" (written by Sammy Cahn and Jimmy Van Heusen, and sung in the pre-credits sequence by an uncredited Frank Sinatra). The film was remade in 1965 as The Pleasure Seekers, and also served as the basis for a never-sold TV pilot starring Yvonne Craig, Cynthia Pepper and Joanna Moore."

Product Details

Release Date:	11/02/2004
UPC:	0024543119746
Original Release:	1954
Source:	20Th Century Fox
Region Code:	1
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:42:00
Sales rank:	1,192

Special Features

Closed Caption;Commentary by filmm historian Jeanine Basinger; Movietone news footage: Academy Awards; Restoration comparison; Theatrical trailer; Widescreen format (aspect ratio 2.55:1); Audio: English 4.0 Dolby Surround, English mono, French mono, Spanish mono; Subtitles: English, Spanish

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Dorothy McGuire	Miss Frances
Clifton Webb	John Fredrick Shadwell
Jean Peters	Anita Hutchins
Louis Jourdan	Prince Dino di Cessi
Maggie McNamara	Maria
Rossano Brazzi	Georgio
Howard St. John	Burgoyne
Kathryn Givney	Mrs. Burgoyne
Cathleen Nesbitt	Principessa
Vincent Padula	Dr. Martinelli,Dr. Martinelli
Mario Siletti	Bartender
Alberto Morin	Waiter
Dino Bolognese	Headwaiter
Tony De Mario	Venice Waiter
Jack Mattis	Consulate Clerk
Willard Waterman	Mr. Hoyt
Zachary Yaconelli	Ticket Agent
Celia Lovsky	Baroness
Larry Arnold	Waiter
Renata Vanni	Anna
Grazia Narciso	Louisa the Maid
Gino Corrado	Butler
Iphigenie Castiglioni	Woman
Norma Varden	Woman
Merry Anders	Girl
Charles La Torre	Chauffeur
Maurice Brierre	Butler
Luciana Paluzzi	Angela
Victor Young	Composer
Sammy Cahn	Composer
Jule Styne	Composer

Technical Credits

John Patrick

Jean Negulesco	Director
John Patrick	Screenwriter
Sol C. Siegel	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Three Coins in the Fountain is good melodrama thanks in large part to the film's Oscar-winning music and cinematography on the one hand and its shallow script on the other. Watching it confers on the viewer the same benefit as a noonday nap: pleasant oblivion. Frank Sinatra sings the title song, a winner that made Rome's Trevi Fountain -- into which visitors toss a coin to assure their eventual return to Rome -- one of the world's most famous landmarks. The story focuses on three American secretaries who fall in love in a Panglossian world in which nothing goes wrong, even when one of the beaus has six months to live. Audiences of the 1950s lapped it up, enabling them to escape their bomb shelters, McCarthy, and memories of World War II. The actors, who cheerfully recite their innocuous lines, include Maggie McNamara, Jean Peters, and Dorothy McGuire as men-hunting secretaries and Louis Jourdan, Rossano Brazzi, and Clifton Webb as their willing victims. The motion picture rises above itself with its beautiful images; the Eternal City never looked better. The dialogue contains nary a double-entendre, and none of the women reveals anything more than an ankle or a bare shoulder. But the film has its charm, and its Academy Award nomination as Best Picture proved that pleasant oblivion could vie with angst (as in 1954's On the Waterfront) for the hearts of the American filmgoing public.