Every Time Rock Hudson Was Handsome In... Come September
It's time for another Wednesday in Rome!
And this week we're spending time with the handsome Rock Hudson and the gorgeous Gina Lollobrigida in 1961's Come September! (Ignore the fact that we're not technically in Rome...)
Come September, if you've never seen it, is about an American businessman named Robert (Rock) who only visits his Italian villa once a year for a month, where he spends his time with his Italian mistress Lisa (Gina). Unbeknownst to him, his staff turns his villa into the Hotel del Vista for the other months of the year.
This year: he decides to head to his villa early, throwing Lisa's life into chaos (she was planning her wedding to another man and then called it off to be at the villa waiting for Robert) and the lives of the staff and guests of his villa/hotel off kilter as well.
It's quite a charming little story, and features a great performance from Sandra Dee as a lovestruck but mature young woman on an Italian tour; and another performance from pop singer Bobby Darin as the guy who falls in love with her (this is the film set where they met and fell in love!).
But what I'm most interested in highlighting today is... every time Rock Hudson was handsome in Come September. Let's dive in!
Rock's handsome when he handles a business meeting...
When he calls up Gina to tell her he's coming to Italy...
When he deals with poor drivers (especially those of the Bobby Darin variety)...
When he outmaneuvers them while driving the narrow Italian country roads...
When he realizes just how better of a driver he is than Bobby Darin...
When he arrives at his villa and is still blissfully ignorant as to what's going on...
When he admires the view, which is of Santa Margherita-Ligure...
When he takes off his jacket...
When he lights up a cigarette (which is bad for you but alas, I'm one of those folks who thinks the act of smoking just looks cool, even though I've never smoked) and starts to cotton onto what's happening when he reads the matchbook...
When he confronts his major domo (played by Walter Slezak)...
When he tries to enjoy the quiet but Sandra Dee's in the next room and wants to analyze him (she, and the rest of the girl's group she's touring with, which includes the stuffy chaperone Margaret Allison, who is played by Brenda de Banzie, think he's just another guest)...
When he changes into a robe...
When he balks at being tossed onto the couch and forced into analysis by Sandra Dee...
When he goes along with it, in the beginning anyway...
When he glowers at his major domo...
When he's finally reunited with Lisa...
A close up of two of the most beautiful people in Hollywood at the time...
When he sneaks into her room (she's been shacked up with Sandra Dee to maintain the illusion that this is a hotel)...
When they kiss...
When he sneaks out before Sandra Dee can catch them together...
When he falls asleep waiting for Lisa to sneak over to his room and wakes up the next morning on his couch...
When he celebrates Sandra Dee and her tour group leaving and cracks the champagne (causing Margaret to trip on the cork and break her leg, forcing the group to stay put at the villa longer and Robert and Lisa to act as chaperones for the group while she's laid up)...
When he and Lisa share a kiss in the hot Italian sun (both looking glamorous in those costumes)...
When he smugly kicks out Bobby Darin and his troop, as the hotel's now closed to new guests...
When he and his major domo watch as Bobby Darin pitches a tent in his front lawn instead...
When he looks so handsome against the backdrop of the Santa Margherita-Ligure...
When they're chaperoning a picnic between Sandra Dee's group and Bobby Darin's group and he's acting like a dad (he glowers at Bobby Darin the whole time and like, dares him to try anything with a slow shake of his head)...
Like, I'm sorry, but this much beauty should not exist in one frame. It's unfair.
When he looked handsome against the backdrop of another body of water...
When he wore a sharp dinner jacket...
When he cut a rug with Lisa while everyone watched and swooned...
When he glowered, yet again, down at Bobby Darin et al....
When he brought them inside and proceeded to get drunk with them...
When he finds out that Sandra Dee told Lisa about the pep talk he'd given her earlier, about remaining chaste for a long time...
When he argues with Lisa over the tone of that pep talk and what it means when applied to their relationship...
When she leaves and he finally realizes that he wants her around forever...
When he formulates a plan on getting Lisa back...
When he borrows this chicken farmer's tractor to get to Lisa, who's already left...
When the plan doesn't work and they all wind up in police custody...
When he decides to give up on Lisa and Italy and plans to head back to the States...
When he tries to convince the porter that Lisa's lying about him abandoning her and their baby (she's dressed in her wedding dress, because she was going to get back with her former fiancé, but after talking to Sandra Dee, who cleared everything up, decides she wants Robert back, and she's borrowing a baby from a nearby couple so that the porter will think her husband's abandoning them) and that it's just a ruse, but then he realizes that he wants to get off the train and stay with her...
When they get back to the villa and realize that the major domo's up to his old tricks...
When he glowers at the major domo one last time...
Because now they're trapped with a houseful of nuns...
...but it's okay because they're married now!
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