Summer storms
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Summer storms |
| Original title | Summer Storm |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1944 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Douglas Sirk |
| script |
Rowland Leigh Douglas Sirk |
| production | Seymour minor number |
| music | Karl Hajos |
| camera |
Archie Stout Eugen Schüfftan (anonymous) |
| cut | Jim Connock |
| occupation | |
| |
Summer Storms (original title Summer Storm ) is an American feature film from 1944 by Douglas Sirk with George Sanders and Linda Darnell in the leading roles. The story is based on the novel A Drama on the Hunt (1884) by Anton Chekhov .
action
After the October Revolution in Russia, Count Wolsky visits Nadena Kalenin, the editor of a book publisher. He has in his luggage the manuscript for a book that was once written by his friend, the judge Fyodor Petrov, Nadena's former fiancé. The editor takes the manuscript and reads it. The lines take her back to the pre-revolutionary years and are at the same time a journey into her own amorous and painful past. At that time, in 1912, she and Fyodor were engaged to each other. But one day Nadena broke the engagement with the attractive lawyer after he had got involved with the fiery, spirited and passionate country girl Olga. Olga is the daughter of a woodcutter, works on Count Wolsky's country estate and regularly turns men's heads. Olga desperately wants financial security and social advancement. For this reason only, one day she marries (with very little enthusiasm) the much older and inconspicuous Anton Urbenin, who is employed as the count's manager. She has no feelings for the old man, but she feels very drawn to Judge Petrov.
Even on her wedding day she ensnares this man, who promises social advancement, and kisses him passionately. The two of them are observed by Nadena, who must recognize from Fjodor's behavior that her fiancé is obviously reciprocating Olga's feelings. Thereupon the deeply injured Nadena releases her Fyodor for Olga. Olga wants to get away from everything - the miserable life in Russia, the sadness of her life and the unloved husband - and tries to convince the now unbound Petrov to emigrate with her to America. But Fyodor Petrov, a man of moral principles, hesitates; he feels guilty about his ex-fiancée Nadena and Olga's husband Urbenin. In view of his indecision, Olga now begins an affair with her employer, Count Wolsky, whose wife she promises to become after a possible divorce from Urbenin. When Fyodor finds out about this, he becomes madly jealous. Olga then makes it clear to him that a marriage with Wolsky does not have to change either of their emotional arrangements. As a wife and Countess Wolsky, she and Fyodor could continue their liaison.
The judge gets so furious about this immoral offer that he lays a hand on Olga. At the moment of her death, Olga assures Fyodor that she still loves him and forgives him for his bloody deed. When she passes away, she has the same lightning-fast appearance as her mother once did when she died. Olga's widower Urbenin is then arrested and charged with murdering his wife. The court then sentenced the innocent old man to slave labor in Siberia .
Back in the present: Nadena is shocked by what she has just read and resolves to inform the police about it, because after all, the real killer Fyodor is still walking around free, and Urbenin toils in distant Siberia. When Fyodor learns that Wolsky is giving his ex-fiancée his manuscript to read, he rushes to her office. Here he meets Nadena, who explains to him that she does not have the heart to report him. Precisely because she still has feelings for him, Fyodor, she expects him to report himself. In a late fit of morale, Fyodor eventually sends his own manuscript to the prosecutor. But shortly afterwards he thinks about someone else and attacks the postman in order to snatch the shipment from him again. He defends himself violently and someone calls the police. When it approaches, Fyodor Petrov is gunned down like a mad dog. Lying dying, he too, like Olga, sees lightning-like “heavenly electricity”.
Production notes, publication
The shooting dragged on from December 1943 to February 1944. The premiere of Summer Storms took place on July 14, 1944. This film only celebrated its German premiere as a result of the rediscovery of Sierck / Sirk for Germany, when ARD showed several forgotten films by the star director as part of a small series on May 30, 1980.
Director Sierck / Sirk wanted Eugen Schüfftan to be the cameraman for his production, but he did not get a work permit for the USA because the ASC cameramen association there refused him membership. Therefore, the American B-film photographer Archie Stout had to serve by name, while Schüfftan was de facto solely responsible for the artistic aspects of photography, and was thus also responsible as the technical director of this production.
Rudolf S. Joseph took over the production management. Rudi Feld designed the film structures, Emile Kuri the equipment. Max Pretzfelder designed the costumes with Lou Anthony.
Composer Karl Hajos , who was also the musical director, received an Oscar nomination for his composition .
The film grossed over $ 550,000 by January 1945, when North America was forecast to have final revenues of around $ 1.25 million.
useful information
This is Sirk's second directorial work in Hollywood. He moved the main plot of this story to the final phase of Tsarist Russia. Sirk wanted to make this film for the UFA in Berlin as early as the 1930s , but only got the opportunity in 1943 from the German-Jewish producer Seymour Nebenzahl , who had also fled to Hollywood and for whom he had directed the anti-Nazi propaganda film Hitler's Madman the year before to. Sirk himself described Summer Storms as one of his best films.
Linda Darnell, until then mostly subscribed to roles of the type “innocence from the country”, was allowed to embody a femme fatale for the first time. With this she had some success and was given similar film roles in the future.
Reviews
The New York Times wrote on October 23, 1944: “Although essentially a conversational piece ... the film makes up for its stormy title with expert characterization, tight and biting dialogue, and generally smooth direction. Only because of its overly meticulous focus on moods and character description does the film occasionally sag and lose its tempo. "
Star critic James Agee praised the film's praiseworthy intent to appear artistic, but found that summer storms mostly had the "deceptive appearance of an illustrated drugstore classic".
The Movie & Video Guide stated, "Darnell has one of her best roles as a beautiful woman who spreads tragedy on everyone who has to do with her, including herself".
Halliwell's Film Guide judged even more critically: "One of Hollywood's occasional aberrations, the attempt to do something very European in typical West Coast fashion," and concluded, "An interesting failure."
In the lexicon of the international film it says: “Emotional melodrama about the love of a poor but beautiful peasant girl for two gentlemen of higher rank in Tsarist Russia. One of them kills the girl out of jealousy, but only serves the act discovered by chance after the revolution. (...) From today's perspective, the paper mache depiction of the October Revolution no longer seems to be taken seriously. "
Individual evidence
- ↑ CineGraph: Detlef Sierck, Delivery 8, F 7
- ↑ 'Princess-Pirate' Up To 500G in Rentals. In: Variety of January 10, 1945, p. 11 ( digitized at archive.org ).
- ^ Douglas Sirk in deutsches-filminstitut.de
- ↑ Bosley Crowther : Film Review In: The New York Times , October 23, 1944 (English). Retrieved February 5, 2019.
- ^ Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1270
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 975
- ↑ Summer storms. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed February 5, 2019 .
Web links
- Summer storms in the Internet Movie Database (English)