SUMMERTIME [1955 / 2022] [The Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray] [USA Release] Katharine Hepburn . . . As You Have Never Seen Her! Venice . . . As You Have Never Seen It!
With this sublimely bittersweet tale of romantic longing, director David Lean left behind the British soundstage to capture in radiant Technicolor of the sun-splashed glory of Venice at the height of summer. In a tour de force of fearless vulnerability, Katharine Hepburn portrays the conflicting emotions that stir the heart of a lonely, middle-aged American tourist Jane Hudson who is forced to confront her insecurities when she is drawn into a seemingly impossible affair with a charming Italian shopkeeper Renato de Rossi [Rossano Brazzi] amid the ancient city’s canals and piazzas. It was Sir David Lean’s personal favourite among his own films, and ‘SUMMERTIME’ is an exquisitely tender evocation of the magic and melancholy of a fleeting, not-quite-fairy-tale romance.
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FILM FACT No.1: Awards and Nominations: 1955 National Board of Review, USA: Win: NBR Award for Top Ten Films. 1955 New York Film Critics Circle Awards: Win: NYFCC Award for Best Director David Lean. Nominated: NYFCC Award for Best Actress Katharine Hepburn. 1956 Academy Awards®: Nominated: Best Actress in a Leading Role for Katharine Hepburn. Nominated: Best Director David Lean. 1956 BAFTA Film Awards: Nominated: Best Film from any Source [Italy/USA]. Nominated: Best Foreign Actress for Katharine Hepburn [Italy/USA].
FILM FACT No.2: Film scholar Gene Phillips describes ‘SUMMERTIME’ as a film that “oscillates between an old-school farce” and a “more knowing, intimate depiction of relationships in modern society.” Numerous names were mentioned in conjunction with the project before filming finally began. At one point producer Ilya Lopert considered casting director-actor Vittorio De Sica as Renato de Rossi. Roberto Rossellini expressed interest in directing the film with Ingrid Bergman as Jane Hudson, and Olivia de Havilland supposedly considered starring in the project. Following its premiere at Venice's Palace Theatre on the 29th May, 1955, ‘SUMMERTIME’ premiered on the 21st June, 1955 at the Astor Theatre, New York City, USA. By January 1956, the film had grossed $2 million domestically. The film was released in the United Kingdom in November 1955 under the title ‘Summertime Madness.’ The film was banned in India in 1955. Sir David Lean suspected the Indian film censors objected to the film due to its depiction of an American spinster falling in love with a married Italian man, despite the fact that his character is separated from his wife. In Germany, the film received several cuts, though Sir David Lean never divulged exactly what was excised from the original version. In later years, Sir David Lean described the film as his favourite, and became so enamoured of Venice during filming that he made it his second home. Commenting on the film, Sir David Lean said: “I've put more of myself in that film than any other I've ever made.” The Academy Film Archive preserved ‘SUMMERTIME’ in 2008.
Cast: Katharine Hepburn, Rossano Brazzi, Isa Miranda, Darren McGavin, Mari Aldon, Jane Rose, MacDonald Parke, Jeremy Spenser, Gaetano Autiero, Virginia Simeon, Sir David Lean (uncredited) (unconfirmed), Tanya Lopert (uncredited), André Morell (uncredited) and Angelo Puppin (uncredited)
Director: Sir David lean
Producers: Ilya Lopert and Norman Spencer
Screenplay: Arthur Laurents (based on the original play “The Time of the Cuckoo”), Sir David Lean (screenplay), Donald Ogden Stewart (uncredited) and H.E. Bates (screenplay)
Composer: Alessandro Cicognini
Costume Design: Rosi Gori (uncredited)
Cinematography: Jack Hildyard, B.S.C. (Director of Photography) (photographed entirely in Venice by Jack Hildyard, B.S.C.)
Image Resolution: 1080p (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio: 1.37:1
Audio: English: 1.0 LPCM Mono Audio
English: 1.0 Dolby Digital mono Audio
Subtitles: English
Running Time: 100 minutes
Region: Region A/1
Number of discs: 1
Studio: United Artists / Lopert Films Incorporated / JANUS FILMS / The Criterion Collection
Andrew’s Blu-ray Review: ‘SUMMERTIME’ [1955] finds Jane Hudson [Katherine Hepburn], a middle-aged American school teacher, arrives in Venice, fulfilling a lifelong dream. On her first evening, she has an encounter with Mauro [Gaetano Autiero], an enterprising little street child, who becomes her unofficial escort. But in the evening, while seating in a crowded café, she sees a handsome man in a grey flannel suit and Jane Hudson first instinctive reaction was to oppose, pay the bill, escape, and keep out of sight.
The next evening, as Jane Hudson sits alone to take a drink in the Piazza San Marco, but at the same time she has a wandering eye. As the violins begin playing “Summertime in Venice” Jane Hudson would turn away in a heartbeat to see Renato de Rossi [Rossano Brazzi] passing by. To hide Jane Hudson anxiousness, inclines the chair next to her, pretending that she is expecting a company. Jane Hudson has come to Venice to find a handsome, unmarried hero of her dreams. But at the same time Jane Hudson is totally furious and resentful about life in general. Jane Hudson really can't understand what she is doing, because her mind is in total confusion.
‘SUMMERTIME’ deals with an attractive spinster secretary Jane Hudson from Ohio who goes on holiday and has ultimately made it to Venice, for her long-awaited dream. Never-married, likable middle-aged Jane Hudson is a self-described “independent type” who is content, or so she claims or thinks, to be mostly solitary, wielding her cine camera throughout the city of Venice when Jane Hudson meets an antiques merchant Renato de Rossi. Jane Hudson soon discovers that even in a town as marvellous and riveting as Venice, going it alone can still leave one feeling unfortunately alone. Jane Hudson is trapped in an idyllic romance until that is reality slowly dawns on her. Jane Hudson also befriends a helpful beggar boy who pursues her everywhere.
The most advantageous thing about Sir David Lean's ‘SUMMERTIME’ is its sensitive portrait of the loneliness that holds back the fancy secretary, a desperately single heroine whose search for romance and adventure is prevented less by cultural differences than by her own feeling defences. Katherine Hepburn is the pleasant naïve tourist with great magnetism. Rossano Brazzi is also powerful, tempting and charming as Renato, the Venetian who couldn't catch a fallen white gardenia in one of the canals of his town.
‘SUMMERTIME’ is more of a mood piece than anything else. It captures the loneliness of a traveller in a foreign land, in this case a spinster who is hungry for love but too repressed to accept the love Rossano Brazzi offers. It has a bittersweet ending, appropriate for a thin story that sets the tone early on and never once makes us believe that Katharine Hepburn is going to find her true love in Venice.
The Technicolor photography is totally gorgeous and must have had everyone heading for the nearest travel bureau for a tour of Italy and eventually Venice when the film was released. The performances are all totally excellent – but the film belongs to Katharine Hepburn, as the actress creates one of her most moving and truthful portraits – sensitively showing us what this woman feels as she watches others pairing off for affairs, alone and unable to really connect. The sexual mores of the 1950’s permeate the film – the sexual revolution was just over the horizon but not yet evident.
This film is one of Katharine Hepburn's most subtle, yet affecting performances. With Sir David Lean's sensitive direction, the gorgeous photography and the evocative background music, ‘SUMMERTIME’ will put you under the spell of its fragile romance. Easy to see why Rossano Brazzi was the ultimate continental charmer.
For many cinephile aficionados, the name Sir David Lean signifies grand moviemaking — sweeping epics like ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ and ‘Doctor Zhivago.’ But the long and eclectic career of this legendary British director encompasses arresting intimacy as well, as evidenced like the films in this The Criterion Collection Blu-ray disc. Among those other stunning films that he was responsible for editing, early on in his work in film, like some of his national cinema’s greatest classic films, including Anthony Asquith and Leslie Howard’s ‘Pygmalion,’ Gabriel Pascal’s ‘Major Barbara,’ and Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger’s ‘49th Parallel.’ In the forties and early fifties, having moved into directing, Sir David Lean made several luminous films, including adaptations of such classic and important contemporary works from the stage and page of Harold Brighouse’s ‘Hobson’s Choice,’ Noël Coward’s ‘Blithe Spirit’ and ‘Brief Encounter,’ and Charles Dickens’s ‘Great Expectations’ and ‘Oliver Twist.’ All are graced by evocative, wonderful shadowy black-and-white cinematography and elegantly restrained compositions. ‘SUMMERTIME’ is Sir Davis Lean’s totally gorgeous 1955 Technicolor trip to Venice with Katharine Hepburn, marked a turning point in his career, like the sun-dappled location shoot was galvanizing for Sir Davis Lean, and the remainder of his films, from ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ to ‘A Passage to India,’ could be considered outdoor spectacles. Yet Sir David Lean’s deep interest in complex characters, Sir David Lean’s brilliant way with actors, and his classic sense of storytelling were never trumped by any scale.
SUMMERTIME MUSIC TRACK LIST
SUMMERTIME IN VENICE (uncredited) (English lyric by Carl Sigman) (Italian Lyric by Pinchi) (Music by Icini)
Overture to “La Gazza Ladra” (excerpt) (uncredited) (Music by Gioachino Rossini)
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Blu-ray Image Quality – The Criterion Collection in association with United Artists presents the film ‘SUMMERTIME’ and is presented in its original 1.37:1 aspect ratio and has been given a brand new 4K digital resolution on an Oxberry wet-gate film scanner from the 35mm original camera negative at the Cineric in New York. In some instances duplicate shots have been inserted into the negative, and for those segments the 35mm yellow, cyan and magenta separation masters were used. Jack Hildyard’s sumptuous Technicolor cinematography looks resplendent on this Criterion Collection’s Blu-ray disc and is vivid at all times with the many reds scattered throughout the film popping right off the screen. Vibrant shots of Venice’s landmarks and waters glow radiantly, but arguably even more impressive is how the image handles the unpredictable fluctuations of natural light without any loss of clarity or resulting noise artefacts. Flesh tones are realistic, and black levels are excellent. Grain levels are solid and consistent, and the images are sharp throughout the film.
Blu-ray Audio Quality – The Criterion Collection in association with United Artists brings us the 1.0 LPCM Mono Audio sound mix and has been cleaned up and offers very good fidelity even though the recording techniques at the time sometimes gave the background music a kind of tinny quality, but definitely not with this film. Certainly the audio track has been cleared of any age-related artefacts such as hiss, crackle, pops, or flutter. The monaural soundtrack was remastered from the 35mm original soundtrack negative.
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Blu-ray Special Features and Extras:
New 4K digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack on the Blu-ray disc.
Special Feature: David Lean [1963] [480i] [1.37:1] [22:04] Here we get to view a 1963 interview with Sir David lean that was original broadcast on the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s television programme entitled “Close-Up” on the 7th April, 1963. The interview with Sir David Lean covered a wide range of topics, including Sir David Lean's austere Quaker upbringing, how he came to love movies, how he got into editing, and his experiences making ‘Lawrence of Arabia.’ Sir David Lean says film is a “director's medium” and movie stars are “puppets,” and names Katharine Hepburn as the actor with whom he really enjoyed working with this American actress and discusses the challenges of blowing up the wooden bridge in the film ‘The Bridge on the River Kwai’ and capturing a difficult shot involving a dog in the film ‘Oliver Twist.’ We also get to view behind-the-scenes black-and-white footage from the film ‘Lawrence of Arabia’ that enhances this amazing interview.
Special Feature: The Most Beautiful Things In Life: Melanie Williams on ‘SUMMERTIME’ [2022] [1080p] [1.37:1/1.78:1] [21:48] Here we get to view and interview with film historian Melanie Williams, who is the author of the biographer of Sir David Lean entitled “David Lean” and the interview was recorded by the Criterion Collection in March 2022. Melanie Williams examines the director's career, and notes the “critical trepidation around his work,” and addresses Sir David Lean's reputation as a cold, emotionless director in this new featurette. Melanie Williams also compares the actress Katharine Hepburn's character in ‘SUMMERTIME’ to actress Celia Johnson's in ‘Brief Encounter,’ and points out the differences between “The Time of the Cuckoo,” which is the play upon which ‘SUMMERTIME’ is based, and its film adaptation, and relates how Sir David Lean identified with Katharine Hepburn's character. We also get to view a few clips from the film ‘SUMMERTIME.’
Special Feature: Jack Hildyard, B.S.C. [Audio only] [1988] [1080p] [1.78:1] [13:01] Here we get to hear an audio excerpt from an interview with cinematographer Jack Hildyard, B.S.C., who discusses with interviewer Alan Lawson how he got his start in films. With this 1988 British Entertainment History project, the Oscar-winning cinematographer talks about the early years of his career and his close working relationship with Sir David Lean Jack Hildyard, B.S.C. and only mentions the film ‘SUMMERTIME’ in the final 30 seconds, but cites it as his all-time favourite film. On top of all that, you get white subtitles at the bottom of the screen because the audio recording is very muffled. While you view the audio recording, we get a single black-and-white image from the film ‘SUMMERTIME.’
Theatrical Trailer [1955] [1080p] [1.37:1] [2:15] This is the Original Theatrical Trailer for the film ‘SUMMERTIME.’
PLUS: Here we get an amazing essay of the film ‘SUMMERTIME’ entitled “Souvenirs” by film critic Stephanie Zacharek who is an American film critic at Time publication, who is based in New York City. From 2013 to 2015, Stephanie Zacharek was the principal film critic for The Village Voice. Stephanie Zacharek was also a 2015 Pulitzer Prize finalist in criticism.
BONUS: This new Blu-ray cover is by Illustrator Lauren Tamaki, who is the Brooklyn-based illustrator that is inspired by the likes of Quentin Blake, Saul Sternberg and Ronald Searle, and Lauren Tamaki that conveys the life of the city of Venice.
Finally, ‘SUMMERTIME’ is a beautiful romance between two people in search of an unnameable connection, and we warm to the way they find solace in each other. But the fleeting nature of this affair is its most golden element; it is romantic precisely because it cannot last. In the end, ‘SUMMERTIME’ is really a romance of the self, a celebration of the person you can become when someone else touches you deeply. We’re all have souvenirs of our own experiences, and what we take away from love affairs is sometimes of more value than what we gain when we try to wrest them into some ill-fitting frame of permanence. To leave at the right time is both the most painful thing you can do and the most freeing. A kept memento is a sad thing, but a memory remains alive and supple forever. It’s the flower you don’t catch, the one you never crush by pressing it into a book. It lives forever, as improbably permanent as a hushed city of secrets built on water, surviving one century after another against all odds. Very Highly Recommended!
Andrew C. Miller – Your Ultimate No.1 Film Aficionado
Le Cinema Paradiso
United Kingdom
