Summer Storm

In 1919, in Russia, the former Count 'Piggy' Volsky (Edward Everett Horton) visits the publisher of the Times Nadena Kalenin (Anna Lee) and brings a manuscript that he had stolen from his friend Fedor Mikhailovich Petroff (George Sanders) to be published. Nadena gives some money in advance and reads the document.

In the summer of 1912, the aristocratic and handsome Petroff is the examining magistrate in the summer resort in Chienova in the District Haircker in the Imperial Russia. His fiancée Nadena is spending the summer vacation in Chienova with her parents that own a publishing house. When Petroff visits his friend Volsky, he meets the gorgeous peasant Olga Kuzminichna Urbenin (Linda Darnell) and he falls in love for her. Olga is an ambitious woman engaged to be married with the peasant Anton Urbenin (Hugo Haas) and she flirts with Petroff. When Nadena witness Petroff and Olga together, she calls off her engagement with Petroff. But sooner Petroff learns that the gold-digger Olga is having a love affair with Volsky, cheating not only her husband but also him. When Olga tells to Petroff that she will marry Volsky, a tragedy happens.

"Summer Storm" is a melodramatic love story based on the novel "The Shooting Party" of Anton Chekhov. It is strange to see George Sanders and Linda Darnell in the role of Russian characters and Petroff singing in Russian is funny. The tone of Douglas Sirk's adaptation of this tragic story has exaggerations in the melodrama but is not bad. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Summer Storm – O Que Matou Por Amor" ("Summer Storm – The One Who Killed for Love")

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.

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.

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.

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.