(1954) "Just one wish will be granted," croons Frank Sinatra, singing Jule Styne and Sammy Cahn's Academy Award-winning theme song: "One heart will wear a valentine." Maria Williams (Maggie McNamara) arrives in Rome to work as a secretary for the US Distribution Agency, taking the place of Anita Hutchins (Jean Peters), who has given notice she's returning to America to get married. Maria shares an apartment in the Villa Eden with a third American woman, Ann Frances (Dorothy McGuire), who has been the personal secretary for the novelist John Frederick Shadwell (Clifton Webb) for 15 years.

At the Trevi Fountain, Maria is instructed in how to toss a coin into its waters after making a wish: "Keep me in Rome at least a year, Mr Fountain." Ann also makes a request: "Bring me another year of contentment, whatever gods are listening. A penny's worth of hope." But Anita makes no petition for divine intervention.

At the outset of director Jean Negulesco's popular picture, based on John H. Secondari's novel (screenplay by John Patrick), an open vista of the city built on seven hills appears; he also takes us through the canals of Venice.

"If you're romantic," Anita advises Maria, "Rome is not the city for you." For one thing, the agency has a strict policy that its secretaries are not to go out with local employees, such as handsome Georgio Bianchi (Rossano Brazzi), a translator. Nevertheless, Anita accepts Georgio's offer to accompany him, along with various cousins, brothers, and nieces, in an old blue, brakeless truck, for a drive into the country where she spends the weekend with his family and falls in love.

Unfortunately her boss Mr Burgoyne spots them as they're leaving the city together. Georgio, studying to become a lawyer, gets fired; Anita moves in with him, revealing that she's not really engaged to be married, only using the fabrication as an excuse to leave USDA.

Meanwhile, Prince Dino Dessi (Louis Jourdan) - aka "the predatory prince" - offers to fly Maria in his private plane to Venice, an invitation which she accepts on the advice of Ann, tricking the Latin lothario into taking her along as well as chaperone. Applying her feminine intrigue, Ann tutors Maria in the art (including neo-impressionistic: "space … infinity") of carrying out "a well-organized system" (covertly learning his likes and dislikes) to astound the prince with how much they have in common.

However, after being introduced to his mother (the first step on the way to the altar), as Dino in his silver Rolls Royce convertible is about to make a profession of deep affection beside the Coliseum, Maria confesses to honest dishonesty. For her part Ann expresses relief: "I'm glad I'm not young and vulnerable anymore."

But the prospect of becoming an old maid with a cat for companionship in Rome has her decide to join her roommates in going back to the States when Shadwell, who has long regarded her for her detachment and freedom from sentimentality, proposes a marriage of friendship in order keep her with him. The next day, following a medical exam, he dismisses his fanciful idea, further disappointing Ann.

One month from the beginning, back at the "fraud fountain" (no refunds) "where hope can be had for a penny," the three women assemble at Ann's insistence.

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