Summer and Smoke

This is one of the most underrated Films from a T. Williams source. Its star , sadly is Laurence Harvey and even more underrated actor.

Many folks had such huge hopes for a long career for Mr Harvey when it was cut so short we often ponder " what would have been" This film gives us some wonderful insight as to the heights that could have been.

Harvey plays Dr. Buchannon on a multitude of levels of emotional detachment..and is superb. Fitzgerald delivers in her role as the tortured Alma and stalwarts, John MCintyre and Rita Moreno supply the sparks.

Lost in all of this is a fine performance by the large version of Thomas Gomez..who proves again his versatility. I love the irony of the ending with the appearance of Earl Holliman as ' Archie" Good Drama is never dated and Peter Glenville (dir) makes it all happen..also ..one wouldn't be surprised to note that Hal Wallis is the producer..one of the all time best that Hollywood has ever had.

C Pope

I wanted to see this film after reading reviews of "Splendor in the Grass", which claimed that the basic idea for that movie was borrowed by William Inge from Tennessee Williams' "Summer and Smoke". I love "Splendor," and wanted to see if the 'Bard of the Midwest' could possibly have copied from his friend's homework.

I think nearly all the films made from Tennessee Williams' plays reveal their stage origins, but none more so than "Summer and Smoke". Sometimes that theatricality works in a film's favour as it does in "A Streetcar Named Desire", but here, it put me off at first. Nonetheless, there are many things I do like about the film.

Set in a small town in Mississippi in the early 1900's, the story centres around Alma Winemiller (Geraldine Page), the daughter of a minister. She is in love with the boy next door, John Buchanan (Laurence Harvey), the son of the local doctor. Repressed emotionally, she believes that personal dignity is the most important thing of all; he on the other hand is adventurous and wild. While she stays at home nursing her mentally ill mother, he goes out into the world experiencing life to the full.

John returns and has affairs with other women, including Rita Marino's Rosa Zacharias in a couple of over-the-top sequences. Alma is crushed, but although both eventually come around to the other's way of thinking, in the end they are just as apart as they were in the beginning.

Although Inge probably saw "Summer and Smoke" when it opened on Broadway in the late 40's, any influence was slight to say the least. As far as the two movies are concerned, "Splendor" is the more accessible work while "Smoke" struggles to overcome its stage roots.

"Summer and Smoke" does picks up the pace along the way, and the two leads are good together. Geraldine Page is an unusually arresting actress, and repeats her role from the stage. She has some tough speeches to deliver, but the vulnerability of her character is painful to watch.

I've always found Laurence Harvey a terrific screen presence, but a number of his peers from British cinema and theatre would disagree - some even thought him a bad actor. Maybe they got his roles on-screen mixed up with his life off-screen. However, there could also have been sour grapes involved; he was very good-looking, had a great voice and the camera loved him; he gives a confident performance in this film.

I knew Elmer Bernstein's score long before I saw the movie. It is a beautiful and nostalgic work with a heart-wrenching main theme. The music gives a haunting sense of loss to the film, offsetting the static sets and overlit photography. It shows the power of music to enhance a film.

"Summer and Smoke" presents some challenging ideas. It's not the best translation of Tennessee Williams to the screen, but more than one scene stays in the memory.

"Summer and Smoke" is another Tennessee Williams southern drama that, after debuting as a play, was made into a film and later an opera. Set earlier in the 20th Century, it's the story of repressed passion, unrequited love and desperation. Geraldine Page stars as Alma Winemiller, the uptight daughter of a minister. She teaches voice, sings a little, and lives with her father and an insane mother (Una Merkel). Alma, since childhood, has been in love with the young doctor next door, John Buchanan (Laurence Harvey), the son of a doctor and a playboy. Buchanan has recently returned to town and is still a reckless playboy. Now he's involved with Rosa Zacharias (Rita Moreno), a girl from the wrong class and the wrong side of town. On the evening that something could have happened between Alma and John, she runs from him. One night, while a wild party is going on at the Buchanan house, Alma goes next door and learns that Rosa and John are going to be married. Upset, she calls John's father (John MacIntyre) at the hospital and urges him to return home. The result is tragedy.

This is a very powerful and poignant story of two people, one interested in earthly pleasures and one focused on the soul and spirit. Neither one is entirely right or wrong, but it creates a chasm between them. When each realizes what the other has been saying, it's too late for them.

Geraldine Page, who played this role to great acclaim on stage, brings her magnificent portrayal to the screen. The role was based on Williams' sister, who eventually went insane. If physically Page is a little less delicate looking than one imagines Tennessee Williams' female characters, her portrayal contains all of the fragility of the role. The final scene between Alma and a salesman, played by Earl Holliman shows the shocking contrast between Alma in the beginning and at the end of the film. Geraldine Page gave us all too few gems on films, as she concentrated on the stage. We have to savor what we have.

Laurence Harvey is very handsome and desirable, but probably a little too refined for the role of John. The role needs someone whose sexuality is less ethereal and more earthbound. Una Merkel is excellent as Alma's mother, a truly disturbed and frightening woman.

Very good film based on a Williams play, worth seeing for the wonderful Geraldine Page and its thought-provoking story.

As compared to other Tennessee Williams works like The Glass Menagerie and Streetcar Named Desire, Summer And Smoke is distinctly second rate. But second rate Tennessee Williams is better than a lot of first rate work from most and a really good cast puts this one over.

A cast dominated by Geraldine Page who plays a woman who is carrying a Statue of Liberty torch since childhood for the kid next door who grew up to be Lawrence Harvey. At first glance these two seemed ideally suited for each other, her the daughter of minister Malcolm Atterbury, him the son of town doctor John McIntire. But both have some issues, her's the kind that Tennessee Williams is known for being frank about in his work, him an inability to settle down. As the film opens Harvey has returned to their southern town after medical school a newly minted doctor. But he's got enough seeds for a field of wild oats and he just wants to have a good old time. Page won't give him that.

But when you've got a raging libido like Harvey has, the only kind of girl you want to quench it is Rita Moreno. 1961 was Rita's year to be naughty, she won her Oscar playing gang girl Anita in West Side Story. Had that film not been out, more attention might have been paid to what she did in Summer And Smoke.

As Page is frigid and won't give up a little to land Harvey she resorts to a bit of trickery to break up Harvey and Moreno which ends in tragedy for one of the cast. Ironically both Harvey and Page modify their behaviors, but there's too much that now makes them incompatible. In fact Page at the end is showing hints of becoming a lot like Tennessee Williams's other great character Blanche Dubois.

Four Oscar nominations went out to Paramount for Summer And Smoke, Best Actress for Geraldine Page, Best Supporting Actress for Una Merkel, Best Art&Set Decoration and Best Musical Score. Sadly it did not bring home a statue and poor Una Merkel her portrayal of Page's kleptomaniac mother lost to Rita Moreno for West Side Story.

Summer And Smoke is a base hit for Tennessee Williams, but not a home run. Still devotees of the man and others should enjoy this film.

Unfortunately, unlike gems like "Streetcar Named Desire," "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof," "Suddenly Last Summer," and "Sweet Bird of Youth," "Summer and Smoke" doesn't have their intensity of character and situational conflicts.

I love the actors, but Laurence Harvey, so great in movies like "The Manchurian Candidate," lacks the cocky heat, swagger, and desperation of Paul Newman. On the other hand, Una Merkel all too briefly steals the show as the mentally troubled mother--her performance is sly from within and totally believable.

Geraldine Page is always a treasure, but here she's slogged down a bit by an all-too-literal and preachy script and sluggish direction. Yes, it's Williams' play, but the script could have been better altered for a screenplay, and all the scenes, even the most intense, lacked a spark and sense of danger. Rita Moreno was simply gorgeous and effective in a pretty thankless role; her talent was more than evident.

The ending is very effective, and while I won't give it away, I'll just say that it made me wonder if Alma Winemiller was on her way to becoming another incarnation of Blanche DuBois. But I'll leave that for others to ponder.

Seven stars for being, well, Tennessee Williams and Geraldine Page and Una Merkel and another tale of family dysfunction, mores, and hypocrisy. But I had to shave off some due to its unfortunate sluggishness, unnecessary length, and over-talky, over-preachy and explanatory script.