The Picasso Summer

San Francisco architect George Smith (Albert Finney) is feeling a little dispirited. He wakes up reinvigorated by his collection of Picasso paintings. He suggests to his wife Alice (Yvette Mimieux) that they go to France to find Pablo Picasso and thank him.

I was expecting a basic travelogue and a minor Picasso retrospective. There isn't much of a plot. There is even less plot than I expected. George finally does something interesting in the last third. The bull fight is interesting, but it adds nothing to the narrative. This is really about Picasso's work being translated into adult-themed animated sequences and various visual stylings. This couple needs a guide or George himself could do more exposition about Picasso. The audience probably needs a helping hand. Quite frankly, they are better off doing an animated short about Picasso's art if they're not going to give drama to this movie. In an aside, how much is that Picasso collection if it's real.

This unusual film is the collaboration of several creative forces - a Ray Bradbury story, with animation created by the Hubleys (directed and "conceived" by producer Wes Herschensohn), a spectacular musical score by Michel Legrand, and co-direction by the near-forgotten Serge Bourguignon (of "Sundays & Cybele"). Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as if all of these people were properly introduced to one another. A successful architect (Finney) decides to chuck it all and run off to the south of France to visit his favorite painter, Pablo Picasso. Alas, Pablo isn't welcoming visitors and despite several attempts at stalking him, our architect-hero finally gives up. Albert Finney gives a frenetic performance with Yvette Mimieux never looking more beautiful beside him. Nothing in the film has anything linear about it, which is probably to its advantage. It is part fiction film, part docu-drama, part art documentary (the amimated Picasso paintings are probably the only real excuse for it - and they often come off as over-literal interpretations of his work). Ah, well, there is the lush music and the Vilmos Zsigmond photography and the elusive spirit of Picasso. Worth watching at least once.

This is the one thing that explained Picasso's paintings to me, when I just happened to see it on television many years ago.The long animated sequences extending the paintings are quite wonderful;they not only interpret the paintings but also show you why Picasso painted certain things the way he did - face extortions for example. All art students should be shown this film! It's also great for children. Whether the story surrounding the animations is any good I can't remember, but that's almost irrelevant! I have been searching for a copy of this film on video or DVD ever since these media became possible.But it just doesn't seem to be available. I can't understand why the film it is not shown on TV whenever there is a Picasso festival or exhibition.Can anyone tell me how I can get a copy of it?

Good movie about a San Francisco couple (Albert Finny, Yvette Mimieux) who go to France to find Picasso. Beautiful location shooting and some humorous situations as the stars meet various locals and eccentrics in their search. Simple plot is accompanied by music by Michel Legrand.

On the down side are a long and violent sequence in which Finney seeks out a famous toreador who is friends with Picasso. There are also three long and tedious animation pieces that depict Picasso's art and themes of war, love, and the bullfight. These are done in a pulsating psychedelic style and seem interminable.

On the plus side are Finney and Mimieux. Familiar faces include Graham Stark as the postman, Georgina Cookson as the loud lady at dinner, Jim Connell as the artist at the party, and Peter Madden as the blind artist.

The final scene on the beach was filmed on Catalina Island and tacked on. The film was never released in US theaters but has been shown on television.

There are literally 3 reasons for watching this movie. Yvette Mimieux in a bikini, picasso's art made into cartoons and a bull fight, all can be achieved by watching 10 minutes of it on mute, to block out the grating, redundant score that drones on like a nagging woman during a hangover This whole film is a mess, that plays like a woodstock era porn film, only less entertaining.

I hear all sorts of nonsense about Albert Finney agreeing to do the 1981 movie Looker ( a wonderful movie), yet somehow this monstrosity passes as legitimate cinema? The horrid story line plays like a travel column in readers digest. The split screen jigsaw puzzle, multi-spectrum cinema photography resembles a segment of Rowan and Martin's Laugh Inn, and the two leads seem really quite bored, which is no doubt how any sentient being will feel after slogging through 10 minutes of this mess.

Evidently there where issues with the production of this film, directors fired, producer Bill Cosby demanding his name be removed, Picasso refusing to make an actual appearance and so forth, it certainly shows in the final product. I cannot emphasize enough the agony caused by the elevator music that accosts one throughout, the stale dialogue and idiotic story line. How this got any critical acclaim only shows how utterly, defunct so called professional movie criticism has always been. Simply Awful