Halb elf in einer Sommernacht

An interesting film that still looks good after almost half a century. It's the kind of adult entertainment that demands thinking on the part of the audience. The story is the usual Marguerite Duras bubbameister masquerading as an incisive analysis of a troubled marriage. The film runs only 85 minutes; any longer and it would wear out its welcome. Beautifully photographed in a small Spanish town and countryside, with some exciting glimpses of Madrid toward the end, it's a triumph of visual style. The three principal actors (Melina Mercouri, Peter Finch, Romy Schneider) all look great, especially Mercouri, who at 45 never looked better. Husband director Jules Dassin here captured her at her peak. Peter Finch for a time just about cornered the market on these adult dramas ("The Pumpkin Eater," "In the Cool of the Day," "I Thank a Fool," "Sunday Bloody Sunday"). Plus, this trio can act, which makes all the pointless posturing and dialog seem more important than it is. I particularly like the enigmatic ending (shades of Antonioni's "L'Avventura"). "10:30 PM Summer" has enough merits to warrant seeking out this seldom-seen curiosity.

I remember when this film opened in London in 1967. It opened simultaneously with 'Accident' by Joe Losey, and 'Accident' eclipsed this one, as they were considered too similar: mysterious, conveying ineffable unspoken currents between people, a pervasive air of unreality and aetherial suggestiveness of things that could not quite be seen. Of the two, this was the more difficult to describe and comprehend. So 'Accident' ran for a long time, while this closed in a week. It is only now that this neglected masterpiece, doubtless buried for decades because it was 'a commercial failure', has reappeared and I have been able to see it again. The colour has not faded and is as fresh as when it was first released. Jules Dassin surpassed himself with this masterpiece. It is his greatest work. Of course, it all relies heavily upon the genius of his wife, Melina Mercouri. It is the most subtle and understated, and hence probably the most powerful, of all her overwhelmingly brilliant performances. Mercouri was more than just a genius, she was a demented and Dionysiac genius, a genuine Greek maenad, a barefoot raver on the heights of Parnassus, in the best traditions of her culture. She is here well matched by Peter Finch at the top of his form, two years after he did 'The Pumpkin Eater' and 'Girl with Green Eyes', in both of which he had proved he was one of the leading film actors of his generation. Now in this intense film together, they speak the unspoken thoughts of a highly complex marriage and of emotional ties where two people have grown together at the root: but will the root snap? The beautiful and alluring Romy Schneider is part of a strange trio on a journey in Spain, where passion crackles in the air, and the flamenco hands clap, as a murderer aged only 19 comes into the story. I read the original novella by Marguerite Duras and thought it was poorly written and, although evocative, far from being a superior work. But it provided the atmosphere Dassin and Mercouri were looking for, a hothouse of semi-articulate and complex emotions, of raging currents of suppressed passions, a crisis of existential doubts, a veritable torrent or electrical storm, to match the real storm which lashes the stranded travellers in the film. Rarely has the invisible been filmed so successfully. This film was not really filmed in Spain, it was filmed in the ionosphere, and what appear to be buildings and people are really plasmas of charged particles. Dassin rose above reality, to film what lies behind it. These things are sometimes thought and felt, they are never seen. But here he reveals them to the eye, like a cloud parting. This is not mere cinema, it is something higher.

I'm totally jealous of Romy Schneider. Not only did she get to act in this extremely steamy movie with Peter Finch, but she also had an offscreen affair with the extremely sexy German actor, Curd Jurgens. I guess she was a magnet for guys who should have been cast as Captain Von Trapp.

Romy plays the friend of Melina Mercouri, a paranoid lush. For some reason, Melina has invited Romy to go on a trip with her and her husband, Peter, even though she knows there's sexual tension between them. When Melina drinks herself into a stupor, she sees (or imagines) the two trying to keep their hands off each other - until they can't. This movie features the first explicit sex scene I've seen in a Hollywood movie, chronologically. Prior to 1966, a scene like this would never have been filmed with major actors and shown in mainstream theaters. In addition to the gratuitous nature of the scene, and the graphic details, there's also female nudity and oral sex. I guess we know now why Peter Finch wasn't in The Sound of Music. Captain Von Trapp wouldn't do those things.

A side plot of 10:30 P. M. Summer (or is it the main plot and it's just hard to pay attention to it?) is Melina's obsession with a murderer on the lam. She imagines what it would be like to meet him, then she finds him, and she thinks it's exciting to help him. Why? I don't know. Why does she drink and pretty much encourage her husband to sleep with her friend? I don't know. Why watch this movie? Well, we all know the answer to that one.

Kiddy Warning: Obviously, you have control over your own children. However, due to sex scenes, I wouldn't let my kids watch it.

DLM Warning: If you suffer from vertigo or dizzy spells, like my mom does, this movie might not be your friend. During the scene when they go to a flamenco club, the camera is handheld like a documentary to show "realism". Also, during the sex scene, the camera swirls around in a big circle, and it will make you sick. And whenever Melina has a fantasy, it shows her POV in a handheld camera. In other words, "Don't Look, Mom!"

Unfortunately, this is one of the most underrated films in movie history. As a matter of fact, it's almost forgotten nowadays, because it was a flop when it came out in 1966.

Jules Dassin's fourth film with his wife, Melina Mercouri, is a slow-moving, poetic love triangle: Maria and Paul, a couple in their forties, travel through Spain with a mutual friend, Claire (played by Romy Schneider), and their daughter. On their way to Madrid, they come through a village where a man has just shot both his wife and her lover. Maria, who has realized that her relationship with Paul has changed, wants to help the murderer...

One of the most surprising twists in the plot is the lesbian relationship between Maria and Claire. Maria wants to catch Claire in Paul's arms, and in a delirious state of mind she dreams about it. The scene in the shower with Mercouri and Schneider is pretty unexpected, though.

The cinematography is just stunning, Mercouri's acting is divine, and Romy Schneider was never as pretty as in Dassin's drama. It's hard to find, but it is a must-see movie!

A sexually frustrated Maria (Mercouri) is traveling through Spain with her husband and a younger woman Claire. Maria's husband is carrying on with Claire and Maria an alcoholic is sexual with every man who chances her way including a murderer in the town they are stuck in.

The murderer had committed a crime of passion with which perhaps Maria (Mercouri) identifies. She helps the murderer get out of town and falls in love with him in the process although they are together for perhaps a half hour and exchange three words...

This film is arty erotic the final flamenco dance looks like a surrogate drugged out orgasm involving all the actors and extras.

60s middle age sexual sequence....lots of these made= Whose Afraid of Virginia Wolf... Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone.... etc etc... this one was briefer with less story to it.

I only watched it to see Mercouri (did any actress have a deeper voice?)

Trust me this thing is boring.