Spring Night Summer Night

Joseph L. Anderson's "Spring Night, Summer Night" is another sixties exploitation movie to be rediscovered and restored by Nicolas Winding Refn but this one really is something of a lost classic. Anderson filmed it almost entirely with non-professionals and shot it on location in Canaan, Ohio. It's a study of a close-knit Redneck family and of what happens when the oldest son gets his half-sister pregnant and it reeks of authenticity, helped considerably by the stunning black and white cinematgraphy of Brian Blauser, David Prince and Art Stifel.

There isn't a great deal in the way of plot and the performances have a ropey, if real-life, feel to them but it's clearly the work of someone who knew his movies and whose influences were as much European as American but who went on to make only one other film before disappearing. Unmissable if you can track it down.

When I was a grad student at the Ohio University School of Film (M. A.1992), this was a "lost" myth of a movie from a quarter century earlier. Many of my peers were ambitiously making short films, but mustering the funds and means to make a credible feature was improbable. At the time, no one knew about any extant prints of rare feature, so I'm glad it has been restored (and the image quality is excellent).

Athens, where O. U. is housed, always seemed to resist the Appalachian culture that surrounds it. Here that culture is on full display, within a poignant story that was really quite daring for its time. Those sensational aspects can overshadow the film's meditation on the decline of small towns in the '60s after the postwar boom subsided, and the restive torment that plagued youth as a result.

Some aspects could have been "better" if you want to compare it to Hollywood films of the era, but as a capsule of social strife and family intrigue, this accomplished a more distinctive and authentic portrait of American life than the industry could have ever rendered.

Here's a film richly deserving of wider exposure. Can't someone pick it up for distribution? It's been described as "the missing link between THE LAST PICTURE SHOW and SHADOWS", which isn't quite on the mark. I think a better pair comparison could be made between the early semi-documentary films of Willard Van Dyke and Pare Lorentz and SHADOWS, due to the casting of unknowns and non-actors in all roles.

Seen nationally in 2005 as part of the Rural Route Film Festival (under the title SPRING NIGHT, SUMMER NIGHT), this film manages to focus on the taboo topic of incest without being sensational in the slightest, and that's only one of its amazing facets. A stark, black and white drama set (and filmed) entirely in southeastern Ohio, amidst the farms, gas stations, bars and simple homes of the area, it's filled with beautiful and memorable photography. This is not a "verité"-type outing of the "DAVID HOLZMAN'S DIARY" variety at all, but an extremely nuanced, melancholy tale of two lovers who may or may not be brother and sister (depending on which story they believe from which parent) with stunning set pieces on foggy hills, in musty barns, dimly-lit dinner tables, on dusty roads. Intensely moving and superbly acted, it feels nearly perfect and is a total anomaly for late-1960s independent cinema, so often considered an urban-based art form.

Everything about SPRING NIGHT SUMMER NIGHT is remarkable. From the making of the movie to its unlikely odyssey through the grindhouse circuit and final rediscovery and restoration to what the filmmakers intended. It all began in 1967 with the completion of a personal project for director J. L. (Joseph) Anderson. Anderson, an instructor of film studies at Ohio University had already made 3 short films informally known as the "Bluegrass Trilogy" because of their soundtracks, in the early 1960s. Those films, FOOTBALL AS IT IS PLAYED TODAY (1961), HOW SWIVED (1962), and CHEERS (1963), are all included as part of this Flicker Alley Blu-Ray/DVD combo release.

Anderson then wanted to make a feature length movie based on the principles of Italian neo-realism cinema substituting small town Americans for post-WW II Italians. The people would be the citizens of Shawnee, Ohio (renamed Canaan for the film), a once thriving mining town that had fallen on hard times following the closing of the mines. The focus would be on one fictional Appalachian family with their dashed hopes that had either seen better days or held out the prospect of a life that was going nowhere.

The focus is on two half-siblings, Jessie and Carl, who have a one night tryst that results in Jessie becoming pregnant and Carl running away before coming back to face up to his responsibilities. As it turns out, things are not what they seem and the pair leave together with the hope of a brighter future. However the real stars of SPRING NIGHT SUMMER NIGHT are not the young people nor their parents (played by professional actors) but the local townsfolk and the surrounding locations that were used in the movie.

Shot over a period of 2 years, SPRING NIGHT SUMMER NIGHT was entered into a couple of arthouse festivals as a work of independent cinema. Sadly it was not well received in Europe and then was bumped at the last minute from the 6th New York Film Festival which would have given it credible exposure. In a desperate attempt to recover costs and pay his non-professional crew, Anderson sold the movie to exploitation king Joseph Brenner who re-edited the film, added a couple of X rated sex scenes, then released it to drive-ins as MISS JESSICA IS PREGNANT. After the initial run, it disappeared until 2008 when it was discovered in a basement at the University of Iowa.

The restoration of the original footage was a labor of love that took 7 years. Fortunately director Anderson was still alive and got to see the restoration in 2015. In an interview at that time, he talked about the making of the movie and its convoluted history. That interview along with several other bonus features are included in this Blu-Ray/DVD release. They include short films on the restoration, scenes and outtakes from the original movie and MISS JESSICA IS PREGNANT, as well as the aforementioned "Bluegrass Trilogy". The movie and all the other materials look great and have clean, crisp sound. All in all this is a fascinating look at an important and almost forgotten look at American independent cinema from the 1960s. Once again Flicker Alley has come through by providing film students and lovers of cinema with a remarkable release...For more reviews visit The Capsule Critic.

This is really no more than a modest little film, made by young enthusiasts, about a poor farming family in rural Ohio with the added ingredient of an unorthodox love story. It is, however, a stunningly beautiful and engaging film with another tale to tell. Back in the 60s the film was mistreated and ignored, finally being re-edited as a sexploitation movie for the drive-ins, retitled, Miss Jessica is Pregnant. With the help of Nicolas Winding Refn the original has now been reassembled with a 4K restoration and amazingly has absorbed a couple of the sexploitation movie inserts to aid clarity of story. Watched today this is most impressive with arty photography combined with naturalistic acting. Indeed apart from John Crawford nobody here had done anything in film before or likely to do much after. With only the ambient sounds of birds or bluegrass music spilling out of the bar for a soundtrack and those wondrous misty landscape views as a background, the close-up and most convincing antics of the various participants sustains the viewer as the slight but dramatic and personal tale unfolds. Poetic.