"Don't Look Now"
“Don’t Look Now,” the Donald Sutherland thriller of 1973, is based on the Daphne DuMaurier story. John (Donald Sutherland) and Laura Baxter (Julie Christie) go to Venice, to work and heal, after the death of their young daughter. John is working on the restoration of a church there.
They are staying at the Europa Hotel, which is actually a combination of two Venetian establishments – the Hotel Gabrielle Sandwirth, Riva degli Schiavoni, Venice, a converted Gothic palace overlooking the San Marco Canal, east of Piazza San Marco.
This photo of Hotel Gabrielli is courtesy of TripAdvisor
The hotel's interior is actually Bauer Grunwald, San Marco 1459, Campo San Moise. West of Piazza San Marco.
The church John is restoring is the San Nicolo dei Mendicoli, one of the oldest in Venice...
and restored – in real life – during the Seventies (though you won’t see the mosaic worked on in the movie, which was nothing more than a film prop).
The church, which is open to the public from 10 till noon in the mornings and 4.30 to 7.30 in the afternoon, is on Campo San Nicolo, a small square surrounded on three sides by the Rio di San Nicolo and the Rio delle Terese. To get to it, you need to follow the Canale della Giudecca waterfront,
the Fondamenta delle Zattere, west past the Stazione Marittima toward the San Marta area.
At dinner one night, at the Ristorante Roma, near the Ponte Sciazi over by the Grand Canal by the railway station, Stazione Ferrovia Santa Lucia, they encounter two sisters, one of whom is a blind psychic. The sisters convince Laura that they can speak with Laura’s daughter, who wants to tell her mother that she is happy.
(As a side note, the title “Don’t Look Now” is based on a game John and Laura play, in which they try to figure out what strangers they encounter are and do. They are watching the two sisters.
Laura collapses and is taken to a hospital from the landing stage on the north side of the Grand Canal here.
John is strongly opposed, but when Laura is released, she goes to visit the sisters and connect with her daughter at Hotel La Fenice et Des Artistes, San Marco 1936, Campiello Fenice, which stands next to the opera house that burned down mysteriously in 1996 and is described in John Berendt’s book “The City of Falling Angels.”
John, sensing danger, takes to following a red-coated figure reminiscent of his daughter.
The suspicious detective follows Baxter through the San Polo district in the centre of the northern curve of the Grand Canal’s reverse ‘S’, to the southwest of Venice’s second largest square, the Campo San Polo: the Calle di Castel Forte and the Ponte Vinanti.
The narrow canal, to which Baxter finally follows the tiny red-coated figure, is the Calle di Mezzo, northeast of Piazza San Marco, to the gates of the Palazzo Grimani a Santa Maria Formosa (at the junction of Rio di Santa Maria Formosa and Rio di San Severo – don’t confuse it with the other Palazzo Grimani on the Canal Grande), where he finds out that – oops! – it’s not his daughter after all.
Don't Look Now location: Calle di Mezzo, VeniceDon't Look Now location: following the red-coated figure: Calle di Mezzo, Venice
The Palazzo has been deserted for years, but in 1998 was in the process of being renovated. It's now a museum. The gated entrance to the Palazzo, through which Baxter enters, can be seen on Calle di Mezzo.
Don't Look Now location: Church of San Stae, Campo San Stae, VeniceDon't Look Now location: the funeral: Church of San Stae, Campo San Stae, Venice
A final scene takes us to the 17th century Church of San Stae (a contraction of San Eustachio) at Campo San Stae on the northern curve of Canal Grande.
By Didier Descouens - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=19525097
Attribution: Necrothesp at the English language Wikipedia
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