Cinco Dias Num Verão

This is a very fine movie. Maltin really misses it with his review. Fine acting by all of the major players. As at least one other reviewer pointed out, this is a finely crafted, minimalist production as far as the character dialogue. Zinnemann did a superb job of direction. The alpine scenes are exquisitely beautiful. The mountain climbing is realistically of the period (1932) and I found it to be completely engrossing.

The film is a morality play about the nature and reality of boundaries. And what type of tragedy can happen when one ignores boundaries. Beautifully done film. If you like real stories about real people you should love this film. If you're a special effects type of guy you might want to ignore it. Still, the cinemaphotography and mountain climbing scenes are worth a look--even for the most jaded modernist.

Five Days One Summer (1982)

Plot In A Paragraph: A middle aged Scottish doctor (Connery) and a younger woman (Betsy Brantley) go on a climbing holiday in the Swiss alps, when their Swiss tour guide takes a liking to the woman.

Director Fred Zinnemann's movie deserves to be much better known than it is. It is beautifully shot, has great locations and is well acted. I think I know why audiences stayed away like they did.

It seemed at first that the couple were father and daughter, then it seemed as if they were on their honeymoon (as the doctor was introducing the young woman as his wife) finally, it was revealed they wear in fact uncle and niece, and they were having an incestuous affair. Not your usual love story. And it plays like a big television drama, lots of unnecessary flashbacks and a very melodramatic ending, and there isn't really a lot of dialogue either!! Long periods of time go by without a line of dialogue being spoken.

Another Connery movie I paid a lot of money to buy on DVD, however this one is worth watching (unlike a few of the others I purchased without seeing) a perfectly fine lazy Sunday afternoon movie.

Budgeted at $15 million, Five Days One Summer grossed under $200,000 at the domestic box office. Zimmerman was so upset by the movies failure and the awful reviews, that he never directed another movie again.

This solidly crafted film is set in 1932 , the story of a haunting and obsessive love story between a married Scottish doctor : Sean Connery and a young woman : Betsy Brantley who happens to be his niece , while they stay on vacation in the Swiss Alps and subsequent loving intervention by a good-looking mountain guide : Lambert Wilson . As the older , married doctor has to compete with a handsome young man for getting his intimate lover .

An interesting but slow-moving and predictable movie in which and elderly doctor has to vie for her love with their handsome young mountain climbing guide , being based on a story by Kay Boyle. A melodrama about a love affair in which there is romantic dialogue , emotion , gestures and nuances by employing a lush setting that overwhelms . It boasts a good cast giving fine interpretation , such as the veteran Sean Connery, the newcomer Betsy Brantley and the French Lambert Wilson , son of the great actor Georges Wilson . They are well accompanied by an attractive support cast providing brief but cool acting, such as : Gerard Buhr , Jennifer Hilary, Isabel Dean and Anna Massey .

It contains superb location with exquisite cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno, adding dimension to the story, including remarkable mountain climbing footage . As well as a sensitive and moving musical score by the classic composer Elmer Bernstein. This was last movie to come from the distinguished Austrian-born filmmaker Fred Zinnemann , but being slow-going and a little bit boring . The film is well directed , though inferior than others Zinnemann movies . As Fred directed good flicks , such as : High Noon, The Seventh Cross , Act of violence , The Men, From here to Eternity, Oklahoma ! , The Search , The Nun's story , The Sundowners , A Man for all seasons , The Day of Jackal , Julia , among others . Rating : 6/10 . Well worth watching . The picture will appeal to Sean Connery fans . Essential and indispensable seeing for Fred Zinnemann completists .

The good points - beautiful scenery, and some viewers might appreciate the insight into mountain climbing in the 1930's.

Bad points - the flashbacks are tedious, the ending obvious (to this viewer anyway)and - apart from Connery, who plays himself, as always - the acting uninvolving. And personally I don't care much about mountaineering in the 1930's, and this film didn't do anything to quicken my interest.

There are some surprises, but I feel the movie really lacks from characters whom one can care about: in particular Betsy Brantley, who plays Kate, seems desperately out of her depth here.

I found it to be pretentious and glacially slow. I'd rather have that ninety minutes of my life back.

This final Fred Zinnemann film was pretty much trashed by the critics when it came out in 1983 which is puzzling, in my opinion. I mean, it's certainly not a great or even very good film but it's just as good or better than a lot of the stuff DePalma was churning out at the same time over which the same critics swooned. Of course, by 1983 Zinnemann was long out of favor with the auteurists who dominated film criticism, having been consigned to the realm of "impersonality" by their hero and mentor, Andrew Sarris who, as usual, confused moral earnestness and craftsmanship with anonymity, as if Zinnemann were no better than, say, Robert Z. Leonard. Or Delbert Mann.

So let me do my small part to mildly rehabilitate this sad tale of a love affair crumbling amid the Alps that could have been told by Hemingway, Irwin Shaw or James Salter. Problem is that scenarist Michael Austin is considerably less talented than those three scribes and makes the fatal mistake, I'm sure with Zinnemann's input, of having the affair be between uncle and niece, thus giving the proceedings an un-needed "yuck!" factor when the story could have worked just as easily or better as older man/younger woman.

If, however, you can overlook the above failing (a tall ask, judging by the IMDB responses below) there are many things that are appealing in this good director's swan song, including fine performances by the three leads, especially the too seldom seen Betsy Brantley who imbues her character with poignancy, intelligence and grace. I also liked the story within the story of the old woman who gazes upon the perfectly ice-preserved body of the handsome young man she was to marry forty years ago. A lot of film makers would have stuck this in awkwardly as a clunky, moralistic sub plot. Not Zinnemann. In his hands it is woven seamlessly into the movie's fabric and does not hit you over the head with "message" about true versus false love.

Then there is the lovely score by Elmer Bernstein, and the even lovelier cinematography of Giuseppe Rotunno.

Bottom line: Sarris was wrong about Huston and Wilder. I maintain he's almost as wrong about Zinnemann. Give it a B minus.