A Little Romance (1979)

Directed by George Roy Hill. With Laurence Olivier, Diane Lane, Thelonious Bernard, Arthur Hill. A French boy (Daniel) and an American girl (Lauren), who goes to school in Paris, meet and begin a little romance. They befriend Julius who enchants them with his storytelling. In an attempt to ensure the teens' love forever, the three journey to Venice.

A Little Romance is a 1979 American Technicolor and Panavision romantic comedy film directed by George Roy Hill and starring Laurence Olivier, Thelonious Bernard, and Diane Lane in her film debut.

"A Little Romance" has been described as a movie about the way kids behave when adults aren't looking. I think it's quite the opposite: A movie about the way kids behave when adults are looking - and when adults are writing the dialog and directing the action, too. It gives us two movie kids in a story so unlikely I assume it was intended as a fantasy. And it gives us dialog and situations so relentlessly cute we want to squirm.

The disarming comedy A Little Romance features Diane Lane as a 13-year-old American, living in Paris with her businessman stepfather (Arthur Hill) and her promiscuous mother (Sally Kellerman). Mom is currently enamored with pretentious-filmmaker David Dukes, and it is on the set of Dukes' latest picture that Lane meets another 13-year-old, insatiable French film buff Thelonious Bernard. A likeable street-smart petty thief and gambler, Bernard is instantly attracted to Lane. With the help of roguish old Laurence Olivier, Lane and Bernard arrange a romantic rendezvous under the Bridge of Sighs in Venice. Naturally, when the kids disappear it's a cause for international concern, but all ends as it should. Some of the best moments in A Little Romance belong to Broderick Crawford, unselfconsciously playing

Trailer from "A little Romance" directed by George Roy Hill

Amazon.com: A Little Romance: Laurence Olivier, Diane Lane, Thelonious Bernard, Arthur Hill, Sally Kellerman, Broderick Crawford, David Dukes, Andrew Duncan, Claudette Sutherland, Graham Fletcher-Cook, Ashby Semple, Claude Brosset, Jacques Maury, Anna Massey, Peter Maloney, Dominique Lavanant, Mike Marshall, Michel Bardinet, David Gabison, Isabel Duby, Geoffrey Carey, John Pepper, Denise Glaser, Jeanne Herviale, Carlo Lastricati, Judith Mullen, Philippe Brigaud, Lucienne Legrand, George Roy Hill: Movies & TV

The Three Movie Buffs review A Little Romance (1979) Starring: Laurence Olivier, Diane Lane, Thelonious Bernard

George Roy Hill: George Roy Hill, American director of stage and screen who was perhaps best known for Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) and The Sting (1973). Hill studied music at Yale University, earning a degree (1943) before serving as a transport pilot during World War II. After the war he attended

13-year-old Daniel (Thelonious Bernard) spends his day watching French dubbed versions of Robert Redford, Humphrey Bogart & Lauren Bacall and Burt Reynolds move across the screen at a cinema in La Garenne.

In an intended sentimental comedy, for instance, the laughs must be produced by the sentiments, rather than the comedy.