Summer Storm

Great movie. Can’t find older movies in the stores. Lucky Amazon has them.

Linda Darnell is beautiful as usual in all her films and George Sanders great as usual. I wish the movie had been in color but it wasn't. Linda Darnell is a young peasant woman who aspires to more in life and entrances three men in the process. The story line was from a Chekov play about pre-revolutionary Russia.Although I liked the story and the actors, it appeared to have been produced on a low budget. The backgrowund sets looked so artificial as if they had been drawn with a lead pencil, shaded. and then enlarged. It was a pitiful rendering of one dimensional backdrops of poorly drawn Russian Onion spired churhes, etc. I just couldn't get past how phoney it looked except for Linda Darnell's costumes.Overall, I would recommend seeing it, if only to see Linda Darnell and George Sanders. The studio that made this low budget movie should be ashamed for not having spent a bit more money on its production which could have made for a much better movie.

A very peculiar film indeed. Chekov's only novel has been set in postrevolutionary Russia, which is surprising enough, but what for me was even more surprising was to see George Sanders in what I beleive must be his best part ever, or at least as good as the one he creates in Rosellini's Viaggio in Italia. The last fifteen minutes of this movie is filled with one great surprise after the other, and even though I wasn't that interested before, I was truly fascinated to see where Sirk and Sanders took me, and how moved I was, finally, by the whole experience of "Summer Storm".

Early Hollywood Sirk film presented Linda Darnell with her first real opportunity to show that she had far more talent than the fluffy girl roles she had been handed up to that point. Unfortunately except for rare occasions like Fallen Angel, Hangover Square and A Letter to Three Wives she didn't get many more chances to shine although she was always excellent with the material provided. Aside from her this has an excellent cast all giving fine performances and many hints of the Sirk touch that would bloom fully a few years on.

In pre-Revolutionary Russia, Linda Darnell is a voluptuous peasant girl determined to rise thanks to her natural endowments. She does attract foolish Count Edward Everett Horton and magistrate (he can investigate crimes) George Sanders, who is engaged to Anna Lee. But Linda's father marries her off to a thick peasant, who unfortunately loves her dearly. The outcome is a fatal stabbing, a trial, and the real perpetrator self-condemned only years later.The film is an adaptation of a minor novel, The Shooting Party, written by Anton Chekhov when he was 24. The 1944 print has been pretty well refurbished. But from first minute to last, I was painfully, restlessly aware that every aspect is burdened by the cliches of Hollywood square moviemaking. I am a set, I am a costume, I am makeup, I am tired awkward words from a dumbed-down script, I am a Kodak camera, I am editing playing listlessly with its alphabet blocks.Hey, don't all of Douglas Sirk's movies suffer from his conventional approach? Can I, having seen the lifelike, intelligent, emotionally and psychologically sophisticated film dramas of recent decades, any longer endure the drear and dreck of the bygone Hollywood studio system? It's a rhetorical question because I know you young whippersnappers don't give a dreck about what Ye Olde Reviewer can endure. Pass the popcorn.FOOTNOTES1 The supplement contains an audio-only interview with author/film buff Bernard Dick, who admires Sirk of course, and probably everything else from Tinseltown.2 It also includes a trailer of Uncle Vanya, the 1957 Broadway production transferred to the screen with cast intact: Franchot Tone, Dolores Dorn, Gerald Hiken, George Voskovec. Apparently it's heavy handed on the humor. Is Kit-Parker-Films also going to give us this Chekhovian corpse as embalmed by the American undertaker?3 The DVD case says the Summer Storm music score was an Oscar nominee in 1945. Bah! Hollywood dreck.4 One of the stills to promote the film shows Miss Darnell supersultry, as if auditioning for The Outlaw. Well, let me give the girl a break. She certainly would have outperformed amateur Jane Russell on the screen, and would have outboobed her too after Howard Hughes personally fitted her with his Flying Fortress brassierre.

This looks like a low budget version of a classic Russian story. But it has the advantage of a fine cast, interesting story, and assured direction. George Sanders, as ever, is outstanding, and Linda Darnell in her vixen mode, is quite good.

is ok; got it because George Sanders is in it; one of my favorites! At first, disc wouldn't play; had to coax it 3 times to play. Machine said no disc; and I took it out; put back in; still wouldn't play; did this three times; and my player is fine! I finally coaxed it to play so hope it plays the next time I try to watch it!

the story was great and the actors were just as fineI recommend this too anyone and I am glad to add this to my collection.

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.

Not a particularly good film, although Linda Darnell puts in a good performance. Nothing special from George Sanders. He's just doing his job as a studio contract actor.