Dangerous Beauty

Dangerous Beauty is a 1998 American biographical drama film directed by Marshall Herskovitz and starring Catherine McCormack, Rufus Sewell, and Oliver Platt. Based on the non-fiction book The Honest Courtesan by Margaret Rosenthal, the film is about Veronica Franco, a courtesan in sixteenth-century Venice who becomes a hero to her city, but later becomes the target of an inquisition by the Church for witchcraft. The film features a supporting cast that includes Fred Ward, Naomi Watts, Moira Kelly and Jacqueline Bisset. The film was released as A Destiny of Her Own in some regions, and was retitled The Honest Courtesan for its UK video release. Plot Veronica Franco is an adventurous, curious, slightly tomboyish young woman in Venice. Her love Marco, who will be a Senator like his father, cannot marry her because her family is too poor; he marries a foreign noblewoman instead. Veronica's mother Paola plans for her family's financial security, as she still requires dowries for her younger daughters and money for her son's commission. Rather than go to a convent, Paola suggests she become a courtesan, a highly paid, cultured prostitute like her mother and grandmother before her.