Temporale d'estate

SUMMER STORM is Douglas Sirk's 1944 filming of Chekhov's 'The Shooting Party.' Why this literate, mature and well acted film isn't better known is a mystery to me.

Set in Russia just before the revolution, it stars dark and lovely young Linda Darnell as a peasant beauty who's quest for wealth and position leads to tragedy and death.

Linda Darnell has one of the best roles of her film career, and she's never been better then she is here. She gives a sensual and sexy performance as the vain and greedy girl who plays several lovers against each other in order get all she can out of each of them. I think Linda Darnell's beauty hardened rather early, and even by A LETTER TO THREE WIVES in 1949, she was already rather sharp and cold looking. But in 1944 and SUMMER STORM, she was still soft and lovely, and one of the most remarkably beautiful brunettes of the era.

George Sanders gives another fine performance, in a rather typical George Sanders part, as a snobbish, aristocratic judge who's obsession with the girl ruins his career and his engagement to lovely Anna Lee. His loves scenes with Darnell are quite frank and passionate for their day, and both stars are excellent together.

And Edward Everette Horton gives what has to be one of the best performances of his career, in a role quite unlike his usual, as a spoiled, lecherous Russian count.

A top notch adult drama in every way.

In 1919, in Russia, the former Count 'Piggy' Volsky (Edward Everett Horton) visits the publisher of the Times Nadena Kalenin (Anna Lee) and brings a manuscript that he had stolen from his friend Fedor Mikhailovich Petroff (George Sanders) to be published. Nadena gives some money in advance and reads the document.

In the summer of 1912, the aristocratic and handsome Petroff is the examining magistrate in the summer resort in Chienova in the District Haircker in the Imperial Russia. His fiancée Nadena is spending the summer vacation in Chienova with her parents that own a publishing house. When Petroff visits his friend Volsky, he meets the gorgeous peasant Olga Kuzminichna Urbenin (Linda Darnell) and he falls in love for her. Olga is an ambitious woman engaged to be married with the peasant Anton Urbenin (Hugo Haas) and she flirts with Petroff. When Nadena witness Petroff and Olga together, she calls off her engagement with Petroff. But sooner Petroff learns that the gold-digger Olga is having a love affair with Volsky, cheating not only her husband but also him. When Olga tells to Petroff that she will marry Volsky, a tragedy happens.

"Summer Storm" is a melodramatic love story based on the novel "The Shooting Party" of Anton Chekhov. It is strange to see George Sanders and Linda Darnell in the role of Russian characters and Petroff singing in Russian is funny. The tone of Douglas Sirk's adaptation of this tragic story has exaggerations in the melodrama but is not bad. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Summer Storm – O Que Matou Por Amor" ("Summer Storm – The One Who Killed for Love")

Count Volsky (Edward Everett Horton) submits a book to be published at the publishing house owned by a former acquaintance, Nadena (Anna Lee). It is an account of the life of his friend and Nadena's one-time boyfriend, Judge Fedor (George Sanders) and it takes place over the summer months. Nadeena reads the manuscript and the story unfolds in flashback as we are introduced to a peasant girl, Olga (Linda Darnell). We follow her journey to obtain wealth and power and the lovers that she cheats in order to obtain her goals. The account is written by Fedor and he does not know that his friend Volsky has sold it for money. How will he react....especially given the contents.....?

The film is set in Russia where there is a definite class split. We see Olga climb her way to the top at the expense of those who fall in love with her. Then, there is a dramatic twist - a murder. Who is the killer? The cast are good - Horton is funny, Sanders is both suave and desperate, Darnell is ruthless while Sig Ruman is particularly good as Kuzma, Darnell's husband. The film is a love story that is particularly tense and dramatic at the end. There is a terrible substitute for the word "lightning" that is repeated a few times in the film, an attempt to draw in the viewer to sympathize with those that utter it. It fails. If anyone said "heavenly electricity" to me, I'd tell them to talk properly. Nevertheless, it's a good film and worth seeing again.

There were quite a few reasons to see 'Summer Storm'. One is because of my long term love of classic film. Two is because of the cast, which included Linda Darnell, Edward Everett Horton (often associated in scene stealing comedic roles) and a personal favourite George Sanders. Three is that it is based on a work by Anton Chekhov, one of the 19th century's finest writers, while it is not one of his best it is still unmistakably Chekhov in mood and characterisation. Douglas Sirk did some fine films and more often than not excelled in melodrama.

While not perfect or a great film, as there was room for it to be darker and more passionate, 'Summer Storm' was quite impressive for an early film adaptation of Chekhov and hardly disgraces the great writer. Sirk has done better and so have the cast, but all of them actually still come off very well and 'Summer Storm' to me was a laudable and largely successful attempt at adapting a work of an author/playwright who is notoriously difficult to adapt.

'Summer Storm' has plenty to admire. Cannot fault the cast. Sanders, at his most handsome, especially excels, he did suave very well and he proves that he could do tormented edge just as well as the cads and villains he was famous for. Darnell is sensual and alluring, despite her role being a bit of a stretch, and the two do have a strong chemistry. Everett Horton is a sheer comedic delight as the count and doesn't resort to mugging. Sirk directs efficiently, not exceptionally but it doesn't wallow into over sentimental melodrama or anything.

It is a very atmospherically photographed film, and benefits also from some intelligent literate scripting that treats Chekhov with respect, a haunting but not overwrought score and a suitably brooding atmosphere.

Having said all that, 'Summer Storm' just misses out on greatness. It could have done with more consistent passion and tension, as while the style is distinctively Chekhov it's Chekhov not fully realised. The low budget does show too in the threadbare, less than sumptuous sets.

Will agree too that the manipulation is sometimes on the silly side.

On the whole, a very laudable effort worthy of a lot of praise and more recognition. 7/10.

SUMMER STORM is an adaptation of a story by Chekov and takes place after the Russian revolution, with a flashback to before it started. An ex-count, Volsky (Horton) brings a manuscript to a publisher (Lee) written by her ex-fiance (Sanders). The manuscript tells the story of a beautiful peasant woman (Darnell) and the deleterious effect she had on several men: the Count himself, her husband, and a judge, Fedor (Sanders), resulting in tragedy.

This is an enjoyable film. Sanders was never more handsome, and he does a wonderful job as a man who can't resist the temptations of the ambitious Olga. Edward Everett Horton is excellent as the annoying, shallow Count. It's always a pleasure to see the beautiful Anna Lee, whom lots of people remember as the elderly Lila Quartermaine on General Hospital.

The gorgeous Darnell was actually in a mini-slump with her boss, Daryl F. Zanuck, when she made this film. It was a step down from The Mark of Zorro, Blood and Sand, Star Dust - now 21 and married, she could no longer play the sweet virgin. She quickly proved to him she could be a seductress, reaching the absolute height of her stardom in the late '40s. Though she never stopped working, alcohol eventually took its toll, and she died in a fire in 1965, age 41. Sadly when she was brought to the hospital, she was coherent and speaking with the doctors, not realizing that she couldn't feel anything and was dying.