SUMMER STORM

US, 1944, 106 minutes, Black and white.
Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Anna Lee, Hugo Haas, Edward Everett Horton, Sig Rumann, John Abbott.
Directed by Douglas Sirk.

Summer Storm was the second American film by German-born director Douglas Sirk. In 1943, after moving from a career in Germany, he made Hitler’s Madmen. He made a number of smaller-budget films in the ensuing years and began the 1950s at Universal with small-budget action features and musicals, Has Anybody Seen My Gal, Taza Son of Cochise. However, by the mid-50s he made Magnificent Obsession and began a series of romantic melodramas for the next five years for which he is still remembered – and imitated (as did Todd Haynes in the 2002 tribute, Far From Heaven). Other films include Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life.

This film is based on a novel by Anton Chekhov and focuses on a young unscrupulous woman who uses people to rise to the top – but is murdered. It is melodramatic material but Linda Darnell is perfect in the central role. George Sanders plays a Russian aristocrat (and he was in real life an upper-class Russian).

1. The interest and appeal of this film? Romance, riches, crime, irony?

2. The importance of the story of Chekhov? The Russian atmosphere and themes, the Russian outlook? The direction by Douglas Sirk and his romantic outlook? As a film of Hollywood in the forties? The combination of Russia, the migrant European director, Hollywood? Did this give the film a particular flavour?

3. The significance of the title, as a symbol, as pictured for the meeting of Olga and the judge? The consequences of the storm?

4. The importance of the film's structures 1919 and the post-Revolutionary atmosphere, the Count as a pathetic figure, the book and Its publication, the flashbacks and the explanation and change of sympathies? The return to the present and the melodramatic ending? Audience involvement in this change of sympathy, irony?

5. Response to the world of 1919: the offices, the books, comrades, the aristocracy and their poverty, humiliation, the new middle class, the lady editor...? The modern Russian world?

6. The contrast with the world of 1912? So little difference in time? Yet so much in atmosphere? The Count, his decadence, the aristocrats and their wealth and banquets, snobbery, the ordinary people and the servants? What comment was being made on both worlds?

7. The central character of the judge, the first person narrative of his memoirs from the book? The fact that his ex-fiancee was reading the book? The qualities of his character, his work, mixing with the aristocracy, his easy attitude to love, infatuation? His amorality? His marrying off his mistress? The scenes at the banquet? The disillusionment of his fiancee, the jealousy of Olga? Allowing people to go to prison? Being reduced to killing? How pathetic a fall of a potentially great man?

8. The evil in his allowing a man to go to prison? His life and the commentary on chance and ill-luck? Sin and the need for redemption? The possibility of redemption?

9. The importance of the book, the confrontation with the woman reading it, putiting it in the post, the change of mind? The pathetic and haphazard death and downfall?

10. Olga as the other central figure? First seeing her in the storm, the maid, sensuous, the attraction of riches? As a girl, being involved in the marriage? The irony of the ceremony and the pathos of the banquet? Her leading the judge on? Playing on her attractiveness? Playing on her attractiveness with the Count? Her willful cruelty? How much did she merit her death? The havoc that she played on people's lives? The comment on the relationships between men and women?

11. The contrast with the fiancee and her attitude towards life and love? Her being hurt? The impact of reading the manuscript? Her not posting it to the police?

12. The portrayal of the Count and the condemnation of decadent~Russian aristocracy? the details of his character and manipulation of people's lives for example the banquet and the wedding, Olga as his mistress?

13. The pathos of the ignorant husband who loved Olga and yet who suffered? His going to prison as an innocent victim?

14. The importance of the wedding sequence? As a sign of Russia in 1912? As a symbol of the inter-related themes of love and hate?

15. How well portrayed was the killing sequence? The photography of the knife, the feet, the hands? Was the audience in doubt as regards the truth?

16. The melodrama of the finale with the judge's fleeing, his dilemma about the post, his being haphazardly killed?

17. The particular insight into Russia and Russian characters? The universal appeal of this film?