Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		0.0
Overall		3.5

Summer and Smoke Blu-ray Movie Review

Oil and water.

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 22, 2013

Tennessee Williams’ work often featured depictions of erstwhile Southern Belles, women sometimes past their prime or at least at the precipice of that long, downward slope into inevitable increpitude. More often than not these women were fragile in some way, sometimes physically, but more frequently emotionally, characters bending to the implacable call of their emotions and usually coming out much worse for having answered that call. Williams’ reputation was built on the two cornerstones of The Glass Menagerie and A Streetcar Named Desire, but the playwright actually had a number of lesser known pieces that opened and closed relatively quickly on Broadway, some rarely if ever to be heard from again (even some ardent Williams aficionados have never heard of You Touched Me, Williams’ second Broadway outing and, believe it or not, a romantic comedy of sorts). While A Streetcar Named Desire was still running on The Great White Way, Summer and Smoke opened in October 1948 and eked out a three month run before shuttering. Williams himself was never really pleased with the play, and reworked it over the course of his career. The fifties turned out to be a fairly mixed bag for the writer, with only Cat on a Hot Tin Roof really exploding into prominence in the same way that Williams’ two best known plays had (other lesser pieces like The Rose Tattoo, Camino Real and Orpheus Descending certainly had their adherents, but from a popular acclaim perspective, they were all decidedly lackluster). Williams actually had one of his greater critical successes in 1952 off Broadway with a revival of Summer and Smoke, starring none other than Geraldine Page, in a performance and production that were the talk of New York. Back on Broadway in 1959, however, Williams experienced one of his more lasting successes when Sweet Bird of Youth opened on Broadway, featuring acclaimed performances by leads Geraldine Page and Paul Newman. Page, herself a woman of a certain fragility and of a southern background, seemed perfectly suited to be the “new” Williams prototype, and she in fact remains rather strongly associated with the playwright in spite of only having appeared in relatively few of his works. Page already had a formidable screen reputation as well, and when Summer and Smoke finally made it to the screen more than a decade after its Broadway bow, and with its off-Broadway mounting still an object of some considerable critical respect, she seemed like the perfect choice to play yet another variation on one of Williams’ favorite themes, a semi-neurotic southern woman wrestling with her own tamped down passions.

It’s no secret that we all bring our own life experiences to anything we view, and our reactions are based upon those experiences. So before we delve further into Summer and Smoke, I'd like to ask for your indulgence as I relay a little anecdote about myself and this film’s iconic star, Geraldine Page. In one of the most embarrassing episodes from my childhood, one of my two uncles, both of whom ran a large Manhattan real estate business and who catered to some rather famous people, either renting to them or finding them homes to buy, decided to "impress" me early one Saturday morning by picking a famous client name out of his Rolodex and calling it. He told me he was phoning the Rip Torn family, a name I frankly didn't even believe was real (hey, I was a kid from the sticks). Nevertheless, I was mortified watching my uncle call these poor people, waking them out of what must have been a sound sleep. After getting them awake enough to recognize who he was, he thrust the phone at me. Somewhere along the line, Rip must have thought better of this exercise and thrust his phone off on his wife, Geraldine Page, who seemed somewhat perplexed but gracious as she spoke to me for a few minutes. Geraldine Page I had actually heard of, as my English teacher had seen her on Broadway in Sweet Bird of Youth and had spent a whole day in class raving about Ms. Page’s performance. I told her that anecdote, and she seemed genuinely touched by it, though I'm certain she was aware I was struggling to make conversation with her. It was one of the most horrifying experiences of my childhood, and every time I have seen either Rip Torn or Geraldine Page on screen since then, I have been immediately transported back to those awful few minutes. And so with tongue only slightly in cheek I must confess to struggling with a bit of post traumatic stress as I attempt to deal with Summer and Smoke.

Though its time frame is just a bit later, in some ways Summer and Smoke plays almost like the flip side of Meet Me In St. Louis, a darker take on that old "boy next door" scenario. While the two would be lovers do in fact live next door to each other, and in Peter Glenville’s opened up filming, we’re greeted by an early twentieth century bric-a-brac production design reminiscent of the Vincente Minnelli musical, the two properties are of course distinctly different. The two main characters in Summer and Smoke are in fact probably better typified by another duo, namely oil and water. Geraldine Page’s Alma Winemiller is the uptight, spiritually obsessed daughter of a minister, while Laurence Harvey’s John Buchanan is the very definition of a cad and roué, a womanizing lothario who nonetheless seems to let his wandering eye drift toward Alma, if only fleetingly.

As with many other Williams pieces, Alma’s incipient prudishness only fitfully masks the teeming passions roiling through her being. That seems to entice John, but Alma isn’t about to surrender herself without getting something in return— namely, saving John’s soul, something he is not especially prone to pursue. Instead, he chases after the firebrand Latina Rosa (Rita Moreno, who beat out Summer and Smoke’s Una Merkel for that year’s Best Supporting Actress Academy Award for her iconic turn in West Side Story). Later he gets involved with a more dewy eyed lass played by Pamela Tiffin, while Alma looks on through bitter tears. Alma herself is dealing with her martinet father (Malcolm Atterbury) and her mentally unbalanced mother (Una Merkel), yet another variation on a theme Williams often employed.

There’s little denying that Summer and Smoke is minor Williams, especially when thrust up against his more titanic achievements, but this is not to say that the piece is unworthy of appreciation. It has a claustrophobic, fetid atmosphere which is virtually palpable, and it gives an eclectic cast ample opportunity to shine, albeit within a relatively narrow emotional corridor.

Summer and Smoke Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Summer and Smoke is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Olive Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.35:1. This is another generally impressive looking Paramount catalog release, perhaps not quite as solid as Harlow (we're obviously referencing only video quality here), but often quite close. The elements here do have some minor damage from time to time, and color seems just slightly faded, but otherwise this is a really nice looking high definition presentation which offers crisp detail and very good contrast. Glenville has shot quite a bit of the film with filters and soft focus, which some may mistake for a soft transfer. As with virtually all Olive releases, no digital tweaking seems to have been applied to the release, and so natural film grain is still completely intact.

Summer and Smoke Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Summer and Smoke features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio Mono track that has no distortion or damage to report and which supports this dialogue driven film quite effortlessly. Special mention must be made of Elmer Bernstein's Oscar nominated score, a finely melodic, emotionally overwrought piece from this always exceptional composer which capably captures the simmering passions of Alma and the reckless marauding of John. Fidelity is excellent, though dynamic range is fairly narrow.

Summer and Smoke Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements are offered on this Blu-ray disc.

Summer and Smoke Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Rip Torn gave the eulogy for my eldest uncle when he passed away, but he was filming The Larry Sanders Show when my younger uncle—the notorious phone call arranger—passed, and so he sent one of his twin sons by Ms. Page to read a very sweet remembrance of my uncle. I mentioned the horrifying anecdote of my youth to the Torn son, and was delighted when it brought a hearty guffaw to his lips as he considered the predicament of his very sleepy parents attempting to deal with some kid who didn't want to talk to them and, in the case of Rip at least, had no idea who they were. I'm not an overly neurotic personality, but the fact that this little incident has continued to haunt me so is perhaps one of my more Tennessee Williams-esque memories. Williams' characters are often prisoners of their upbringings and their memories, and that's certainly the case with Summer and Smoke's Alma and John. Sometimes the struggle to escape our pasts only tightens the tethers of memory, as both of these characters come to realize, something that's ironic in that much of what many people (myself included, as my anecdote hopefully proves) struggle to escape from are those very memories. This may not be prime Williams, but it features some stellar performances, especially from Page and Merkel, who are magnificent. This Blu-ray features excellent video and audio and comes Recommended.