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L'Aveu

Original title: Summer Storm
  • 1944
  • Tous publics
  • 1h 46m
IMDb RATING
6.6/10
752
YOUR RATING
Linda Darnell and George Sanders in L'Aveu (1944)
In this filmed Chekhov adaptation, Olga is an alluring peasant woman who lures cynical aristocrat Fedor away from his milquetoast fiancée, with tragic consequences.
Play trailer2:11
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Film NoirCrimeDramaRomance

An alluring peasant woman lures a cynical aristocrat away from his milquetoast fiancée, with tragic consequences.An alluring peasant woman lures a cynical aristocrat away from his milquetoast fiancée, with tragic consequences.An alluring peasant woman lures a cynical aristocrat away from his milquetoast fiancée, with tragic consequences.

  • Director
    • Douglas Sirk
  • Writers
    • Rowland Leigh
    • Robert Thoeren
    • Anton Chekhov
  • Stars
    • Linda Darnell
    • George Sanders
    • Anna Lee
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.6/10
    752
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Douglas Sirk
    • Writers
      • Rowland Leigh
      • Robert Thoeren
      • Anton Chekhov
    • Stars
      • Linda Darnell
      • George Sanders
      • Anna Lee
    • 17User reviews
    • 10Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar
      • 3 wins & 1 nomination total

    Videos1

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    Photos67

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    Top cast37

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    Linda Darnell
    Linda Darnell
    • Olga Kuzminichna Urbenin
    George Sanders
    George Sanders
    • Fedor Mikhailovich Petroff
    Anna Lee
    Anna Lee
    • Nadena Kalenin
    Edward Everett Horton
    Edward Everett Horton
    • Count 'Piggy' Volsky
    Hugo Haas
    Hugo Haas
    • Anton Urbenin
    Laurie Lane
    Laurie Lane
    • Clara Heller
    • (as Lori Lahner)
    John Philliber
    • Polycarp - Petroff's Butler
    Sig Ruman
    Sig Ruman
    • Kuzma
    • (as Sig Rumann)
    John Abbott
    John Abbott
    • Lunin - Public Prosecutor
    Mary Servoss
    Mary Servoss
    • Mrs. Kalenin
    André Charlot
    • Mr. Kalenin
    Robert Greig
    Robert Greig
    • Gregory - Volsky's Butler
    Nina Koshetz
    • Gypsy Singer
    Paul Hurst
    Paul Hurst
    • Officer Orloff
    Charles Trowbridge
    Charles Trowbridge
    • Doctor
    Don Brodie
    Don Brodie
    • Bit Player
    • (uncredited)
    Woody Charles
    • Young Lackey
    • (uncredited)
    Jimmy Conlin
    Jimmy Conlin
    • Man Mailing Letter
    • (uncredited)
    • Director
      • Douglas Sirk
    • Writers
      • Rowland Leigh
      • Robert Thoeren
      • Anton Chekhov
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews17

    6.6752
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    Featured reviews

    7bkoganbing

    Russian peasant vixen

    Summer Storm is an adaption of Anton Chekhov's play The Shooting Party updated so as to include the Russian Revolution and the upheavals in the social order it brought. But certain things are both international and eternal. As this one where a beautiful peasant girl uses her looks and charm to get ahead in a society that didn't have any feminist notions.

    Linda Darnell is our beautiful and alluring female protagonist. She's a peasant girl who is on the estate of Count Edward Everett Horton and before the film is over she gets the hormones going for Horton, for his estate manager Hugo Haas and for Judge George Sanders.

    This was a bit of interesting casting for Sanders as he was in fact born in old Russia and according to his biographer and colleague Brian Aherne had a bit more of that temperament in his nature than you would realize. But for all of his position and sophistication he's addicted to love when it comes to Darnell.

    This was also unusual casting for Edward Everett Horton who usually was playing silly fuss budgets in so many comedy films Some of that is here, but director Douglas Sirk got so much more from the character. As Sanders observes about the decadent Horton, he's everything that's wrong with the society that he is a part of.

    Anna Lee is in Summer Storm also. She's the girl Sanders throws over for Darnell. But comes the Revolution and the worm really does turn.

    It's not exactly what Chekhov had in mind, but Summer Storm is definitely worth a look for fans of the various cast members.
    7AlsExGal

    A rarely seen Sirk.

    Set in pre-revolutionary Russia, it tells the story of a young femme fatale, scheming and driving men mad in her hamlet. It is atmospheric and moody, and has some interesting casting. No surprise in George Sanders playing a cad, nor really in Edward.Everett Horton playing a buffoonish, decadent wealthy man (despite the role supposedly being serious, he comes off as his usual comic relief). But the revelation back then was casting 20 year old Linda Darnell as the femme fatale; the role changed her image overnight, after five years playing the innocent girl-next door ingenue, and revitalized her career. Suddenly, she was in the pin-up sweepstakes, as the film publicity had her posing in revealing costumes, amongst bales of hay, a la Jane Russell's for "The Outlaw". In the future, Darnell would usually be cast as a femme fatale, which seemed to fit her better than her previous image.

    As for the script, the last fifteen minutes or so has quite few surprises and is interesting in and of itself.
    7blanche-2

    good film and performances

    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.
    7TheLittleSongbird

    Kicks up enough of a storm

    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.
    6brogmiller

    Culture clash.

    Such a pity that Detlef Sierck was unable to realise his wish to film Anton Checkhov's 'The Shooting Party' whilst working at UFA Studios, even more so in that, as Douglas Sirk, he eventually turned out this homogenised Hollywood version.

    Mr. Sirk's visual sense is evident here and it is nicely shot by Archie Stout but the whole enterprise is studio bound, pedestrian and utterly devoid of passion.

    The film's poster is designed to show the physical attributes of ravishing Linda Darnell who plays the first of her sultry temptresses. Her beauty wreaks havoc in the lives of her woodcutter husband played touchingly by Hugo Haas whose East European accent makes his character refreshingly idiomatic; the blinkered, hedonistic and utterly loveable aristocrat of veteran scene stealer Edward Everett Horton and the judge of George Sanders. Although Russian by birth, Gentleman George in his first of three films for this director, is far too urbane to convince in such a passionate role whilst his scenes with Miss Darnell lack the necessary fire.

    In retrospect, with the notable exception of Clarence Brown's 'Anna Karenina', Hollywood's attempts to film Slavonic literature must be accounted a failure. The cultural gap is simply too vast.

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    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      The writing credit "Michael O'Hara" is a pseudonym for director Douglas Sirk. He picked the name because when he started this movie he had just finished reading 'Appointment in Samarra' by John O'Hara.
    • Goofs
      In the present day, Count Volsky tells Nadena Kalenin that he remembers how she was "just a little girl" seven years ago. However, the main events of the story take place seven years earlier, when Nadena was a fully grown woman.
    • Quotes

      Fedor Mikhailovich Petroff: You're so beautiful; why is it that you degrade everything you touch?

    • Connections
      Featured in La noche de...: La sombra de la sospecha (2017)
    • Soundtracks
      'Andante cantabile' from Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 11
      Written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky

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    Details

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    • Release date
      • May 19, 1948 (France)
    • Country of origin
      • United States
    • Official site
      • Streaming on "The Sprocket Vault" Official YouTube Channel
    • Language
      • English
    • Also known as
      • Summer Storm
    • Filming locations
      • Universal Studios - 100 Universal City Plaza, Universal City, California, USA(Studio)
    • Production companies
      • Angelus Pictures
      • Nero Films
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 46 minutes
    • Color
      • Black and White
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.37 : 1

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