Only the memory stays

In our family, I’m the most techie-challenged. I would have been happy and content with my first-generation cell phone, which was about the size of a man’s forearm, had not my husband intervened. 

“No way!” he said, as he continued to update our gadgets in the house that took me weeks, even months, to get accustomed to. 

The one that I got to like very much was Apple’s iTunes store. Our subscription to the store made it easy to rent, buy or download movies and documentaries on our computer and TV set, and watch them at our leisure.

Last night, while surfing the “Classics” directory for vintage movies, I found a movie that I’ve long wanted to watch out of nostalgia.   The movie opened with lovely music by Max Steiner and like a switch that was turned on in my memory bank, the familiar melody came back. I can hum it still — the whole soundtrack, in fact. 

The plot involved a librarian who quit her job after drawing the ire of the prudish school board for having recommended to her student a banned book, Lovers Must Learn.

She decided to go to Rome and be in the eternal city to perhaps find passion and love. There, she met and fell in love with a handsome architecture student who took her on a romantic tour of Italy with background music to set the mood. Of course, there was also the other woman to thicken the plot but the director promised a happy ending so that everyone would have fallen in love by the time the credit titles rolled up the screen.

The movie Rome Adventure was filmed in 1962. I was 15 then, a sophomore in high school, and had not yet fallen in love but I had a list of teen crushes a yellow-pad long. Like the heroine, I was thrilled to think that somewhere — maybe in Manila? — there could be a young man who could be boyfriend material for me. 

What qualifications must he possess? He must be tall and handsome, period. Wit and wherewithal never came into the equation. 

But that was four decades ago. Watching this movie again didn’t illicit the same giddy, goose bumps effect on me. I was smiling, but at the same time, I thought the movie was flat and fluffy. It was boring and, if not for the beautiful Italian landscape and architecture, it was nothing but a well-planned travelogue. The leading lady even toured Italy in high heels. Come to think of it, anyone who traveled in the ‘60s would have worn high heels, too.  

What happened? This movie was such a big hit with our generation that everyone wanted to look and dress like the lead stars Suzanne Pleshette and Troy Donohue.

Its simple plot and naïveté reflected the values of our generation when girls were raised to guard their virginity and never be caught in a situation where her reputation would be compromised. There were several scenes in the film devoted to keeping up this decent and proper behavior: The man had to sleep out in the terrace so that the woman could sleep in her big comfortable hotel bed alone. 

The woman was even overcome with guilt — for traveling around Italy with a bachelor — even if they never slept together, that she cut short the trip and returned to Rome to avoid idle, baseless rumors. 

The following day, I mentioned the movie to my husband and he jumped with delight. “Hey! I know that movie, too. Everybody wanted to own a red pullover like Troy Donahue’s but I was more excited about the red Vespa scooter that I wanted to own.”

Hmm, the red pullover and the red Vespa scooter would have turned him into a hot heartthrob? Yes! However, he forgot one last detail: the blonde, wavy, naturally streaked hair of Troy Donahue.    One romantic scene in the movie showed an Italian singer, Emilio Pericoli, singing the wonderful song Al Di Là, his Italian version that rose to No. 6 following the movie’s release in ’62. When the lovers exchanged glances and continued to hold hands, you could hear the womenfolk dropping sigh after sigh.    

 “I remember everyone in school memorizing the song with no idea of how the lyrics went just so long as we pronounced it right,” my husband quipped. “The Italian suits in this movie were classic in fit and construction; the style is, in fact, making a comeback.”

When I mentioned the movie to a bunch of girlfriends, they, too, chorused: “Oh gosh! That song…La, la, laaaaa…al di la del bene piu prezioso, ci sei tu….”

The movie belonged to an earlier, simpler time. The thrill, the fun and the innocence of falling in love were handled with kid gloves, making the experience truly rose-colored and heavily romanticized (and unreal). Explicit sex was never played out in front of the camera and that probably became a subtle reminder for our generation to try and aim for that kind of a relationship — innocent boy-meets-innocent girl — with physical intimacies confined to just holding hands and some kissing cinches. Maintaining a decorum among lovers and friends may give one better odds of making the love last forever. Or so we thought. 

The movie closed with Suzanne Pleshette stepping down from the plank of a luxury liner. “She sees a candelabra and roses weaving their way through the crowd. Her heart leaps as she passed her parents and as she slides into the arms of her perfect man, her prize from her Rome Adventure.”

That was a tour back in time. Only the memory stays, just like the song.