Zurlini's frequent theme of love between a young man and an older woman is here set against a particular and pointed backdrop: the beach at Riccione, near Rimini, in 1943, the year that saw the fall of Mussolini and the start of the civil war between Fascists and anti-Fascists. None of this is foreseen by the young scions of the town's well-to-do Fascists; having avoided the draft, they've settled in for another vitelloni summer (a la parmigiano). Jean-Louis Trintignant is one such fasco-brat who meets a patrician widow (Eleanora Rossi Drago) at exactly the moment he becomes aware there is a war out there. Love may be his coming of age, but in the event, war trumps love. "Violent Summer was one of the rare films to broach a long-standing taboo in Italian cinema: the depiction of the dramatic year of 1943....The romance is developed with great conviction, but the film's most striking passages involve group scenes of gilded youth, lolling on the Adriatic beaches and dancing to American big-band music while the Allies have landed in Sicily and the regime is about to topple." (Elliott Stein)