You ever book a trip thinking you’re heading to a romantic, sun-drenched Roman holiday, only to realize your Airbnb is over a nightclub, your travel partner sings opera at you when you’re trying to sleep, and your love triangle comes with a punchline? That’s Hills of Rome in a nutshell—a Technicolor postcard stuffed with tenor bombast, mild comedy, and enough soft-focus longing to make your mom sigh and your dad fall asleep. Three stars: not great, not terrible, but definitely wearing cologne strong enough to clear customs.
MGM Buys a Ticket to Italy
By the late ‘50s, Mario Lanza was riding the soft slope from operatic demigod to melodrama mascot. Hills of Rome was intended to be a comeback vehicle—though “vehicle” here means a slow-moving Vespa with a loose muffler. MGM, sensing it could squeeze one last global tour out of Lanza’s pipes, partnered with Titanus Studios in Italy for this joint production, filmed partly on Rome’s actual streets and partly on sets that look suspiciously like Epcot’s Italian Pavilion with a lighting problem.
Screenwriter Art Cohn co-penned the script (and then promptly died in a plane crash two months after the film’s release, proving that this movie literally killed someone). His co-writer Giorgio Prosperi added enough Italian flavor to make the dialogue feel like it was translated twice—once into English, and once into emotionally vague shrugging. The original title Arrivederci Roma was, ironically, supposed to be the name of Lanza’s next movie, until Lanza himself pulled the ultimate Italian exit and died in Rome in 1959.
The Tenor and the Tagalong
Mario Lanza plays Marc Revere, an American TV singer and emotional time-share salesman, who comes to Italy chasing his jet-set fiancée Carol (Peggie Castle, in a final film role that plays like a woman enduring her own script in real time). Naturally, Marc stumbles into a love triangle involving his bohemian cousin Pepe Bonelli (Renato Rascel, bringing the kind of bumbling optimism you’d expect from a man whose career arc resembles a cartoon balloon) and Raffaella (Marisa Allasio, playing innocent charm like it’s her final undergraduate thesis).
The movie is one part Roman Holiday, one part La Bohème, and three parts “Why are we singing right now?” Lanza belts out arias in nightclubs, piazzas, and during minor criminal proceedings. There’s a scene where he buys Raffaella a train ticket for 5,900 lira—roughly $9 in 1957 or $70 in today’s cash—proving once again that men will financially support complete strangers if the lighting is romantic enough. There’s also a fistfight in a fancy Roman club that leads to Marc being sentenced by a judge (yes, really) to sing there for free. Justice in Italy: equal parts civic restitution and dinner theater.
A Postcard with Wrinkles
MGM made a small profit—$162,000 net—not exactly Ben-Hur money, but enough to keep the suits in ties. It was a hit overseas, because apparently “man sings to women while looking sweaty but noble” travels well. In the U.S., audiences received it like a dessert cart brought out too late: pretty, bloated, and confusingly unnecessary. Critics were lukewarm, but nobody dared challenge Lanza’s vocal cords, which by this point were more reliable than his contract negotiations.
Peggie Castle moved to TV and wisely never looked back. Marisa Allasio, who could’ve been Italy’s answer to Debbie Reynolds if someone had written her an actual character, retired after this movie and married into aristocracy, which frankly sounds like a better third act than anything in the film. And Lanza? Well, this was his second-to-last film. His final one was a Spanish-dubbed version of The Great Caruso but with less budget and more existential sadness.
Good Enough to Play on an Airplane, But Not One That’s Landing
So here’s the deal: Hills of Rome isn’t a great movie. It’s barely a good one. But it’s scenic, sincere, and strange enough to deserve a spin on a rainy Sunday. You don’t watch this for plot—you watch it for Lanza yelling opera at fountains, awkward romantic pacing, and a charming reminder that sometimes, the only thing more dramatic than love is trying to explain it in a second language while under court order.
⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3/5)
#ArrivederciRoma #MarioLanza #MidCenturyMelodrama #TravelButMakeItTenor #JetSetJustice #FinalFilmFeels #CousinPepeDeservedBetter
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