Estate e fumo

"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.

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.

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.

When this was released I quickly made my way to the Fox West Coast Fine Arts Theater in Beverly Hills, California during its first-run engagement. Advance reviews were quite positive but I was unprepared for the power and yet the delicacy of Geraldine Page's performance as Alma Winemiller. Although I was never a fan of Laurence Harvey, who was cast in so many top films of that era, he joined his fellow players in affording Miss Page some very solid support. Una Merkel and John McIntire were especially worthy of praise, Earl Holliman acquits himself manfully in a brief role in the chilling final sequence, and Pamela Tiffin was touchingly beautiful as a heedless young thing. However, Rita Moreno, who has since complained about all those "spitfire" roles with which she was saddled during her earlier Hollywood days, probably counts this appearance as one of those she'd prefer we forget. (But, parenthetically, she has more than reason to be grateful for a list of credits that had already included the lovely Tuptim in the mega-box office hit, "The King and I," an Academy Award for her supporting role in "West Side Story," resulting in a career that continues to this day, outlasting many of the top stars who had led the casts of her earliest film assignments.)

Peter Glenville's direction (whose filmography is notably sparse) marshalls his actors and the top-notch production values with aplomb, aided by one of Elmer Bernstein's best scores. The VHS version does not appear to be letterboxed, thus losing cinematographer Charles Lang, Jr.'s elegant Panavision framing, which was one of this film's handsomer attributes.

I saw this movie at a theater in Springfield, Ohio, at the time of its original theatrical release. I don't know if memory makes things seem better than they really were but I rate this as the most memorable movies I have ever seen. I thought it was fantastic. I've not seen the video and I'm not sure that I would want to since this VHS edition is not letter-boxed. It would have a 1.33 aspect ratio instead of the wide, 2.35 aspect ratio of the original Panavision film. I think that would destroy much of the film's visual appeal. If this movie ever comes out on DVD, in the original Panavision aspect ratio, I'll be certain to buy it!