A Matter Of Time (1976)

In the 1950s (at least it looks like the 1950s), a young country girl (Liza Minnelli) moves to Rome to work as a maid in a hotel that has seen better days. It is there that she meets an aging Contessa (Ingrid Bergman), once a great beauty and a former courtesan, who lives in the past. The final film of the great Vincente Minnelli is a disjointed, awkward film which feels very old fashioned and not in a good way. To be fair, the film was taken away from him by the studio heads who did the final edit and Minnelli disowned the film. Honestly, I'm not sure there's a good movie in there but we'll never know but at least I would have liked the opportunity to see Minnelli's cut. So it's kind of hard to know where to place the blame. Proud papa Minnelli has Geoffrey Unsworth (MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS) light and shoot his daughter exquisitely, she's never looked more beautiful on the screen. But the film belongs to Bergman who manages to retain vestiges of a possibly great performance. The lovely score is by Nino Oliviero and the mediocre songs by Fred Kander and John Ebb. With Charles Boyer in his final film role, Isabella Rossellini in her first film role, Gabriele Ferzetti, Fernando Rey, Tina Aumont and Spiros Andros.