Marcello Mastroianni,as a lonely city transplant ,and Maria Schell,as a sheltered girl haunted by a lover's promise,meet by chance on a canal bridge and begin a tentative romance that quickly entangles them in a web of longing and self-delus on.Luchino Visconti's Le Notti Bianche,an exquisite adaptation of Dostoyevsky's White Nights,translates this romantic ,shattering tale of two restless souls into a ravishing black-and-white dream.