10.30 PM SUMMER

US, 1966, 85 minutes, Colour.
Melina Mercouri, Romy Schneider, Peter Finch, Julian Mateos.
Directed by Jules Dassin.

Jules Dassin had a career in Hollywood in the 1940s, with such films as Brute Force and The Naked City. However, he was blacklisted and had to leave Hollywood, going to Europe and making films there including Rififi and Never on Sunday. He married Melina Mercouri who featured in Never on Sunday and then went on to make Topkapi.

Melina Mercouri appears in this film with an international cast including Romy Schneider and Peter Finch. The setting is Spain.

The locations are luxurious, Spain looking very colourful. However, the film is a bizarre melodrama with Melina Mercouri as an alcoholic, Romy Schneider as the femme fatale leading on Peter Finch and Julian Mateos.

The film was written by Marguerite Duras, adapting her novel. Marguerite Duras made a number of films, especially with the screenplay for Hiroshima Mon Amour. She was portrayed by Josiane Bolasko and her relationship with director George Franju and their involvement in a potential documentary about North Africa with Ben Barka as adviser, something which led to his assassination. The film was the 2005 I Saw Ben Barka Get Killed.

1. For what audience was this film made? American audience, European?

2. The reputation of Marguerite Duras and her exploration of relationships? Jules Dassin and his American/European reputation? Directing Melina Mercouri, his wife? The value of this collaboration?

3. The significance of the title, its emphasis on time and season? Indication of theme? How was it used in the film itself?

4. The importance of atmosphere and location for the melodramatic study of relationships and violence? Spain and the way its atmosphere was presented, colour, music? The contrast between night and day? The presentation of the storm and its impact? The contrast between city, town, countryside? The details of local colour of people, streets, incidents? The roving around of town and countryside by the characters contributing to the atmosphere?

5. How much reality was there in the screenplay? Was the film "realistic"? A fantasy? A blend of realism and fantasy? In the minds of the characters, in their behaviour? The response in the audience of fantasy and reality?

6. Melina Mercouri's impact as Maria? A character portrayal of a tempestuous woman? The strengths and weaknesses of her character? The importance of her marriage, her relationship with Paul, contrasting with Claire, Judith? Her drinking, pessimism? Her exuberance, impulsiveness, compulsiveness? Jealousy and intensity? Becoming involved in what she was doing at the moment? The importance of Rodriguez, the help? Her lavish style and lavishing attention and affection? The importance of guilt and its repercussions for her? a credible human being?

7. The contrast with Paul as an ordinary kind of man, his being complementary to Maria? Relationship with Judith? Claire? His ability in his character and in the situations to cope with them all? The importance of the travelling, the effect of Spain? An ordinary man yet, involved in intense situations? His response to the strange night? the bond between himself and Claire developing? The impact of Rodrigo and the response of Paul? A credible character and characterization?

8. The significance of Claire and her role in the triangle, as seen realistically by Paul and Maria, as complementing their fantasy? The strengths and weaknesses of her character, her intensity and comparison with Maria? Style, sexuality?

9. Rodrigo and the Spanish background, the melodrama, the melodramatics of his death? The involving of the main characters, his body, the countryside?

10. The importance of the child being present in all these events? How did the screenplay focus on the child, the child highlighting what was happening in the lives of the adults? The effect of all this on the child?

11. The presentation of the Spaniards and their characters, the contract with the visitors? the way of life and involvement with the visitors contrasting with that of the Spaniards?

12. How valuable a psychological study? Critics did not like the film and called it a muddle. They highlighted the melodrama. Was there sufficient insight via the conventions of melodrama?