BY TODD GARBARINI
A Summer Story is the unassuming title of a classy
and ultimately emotionally wrenching romantic drama of class differences set in
Great Britain in the early 1900’s. Originally released in the United States in
the summer of 1988 in a small number of theaters, the film is an adaption of John
Galsworthy’s 1916 short story “The Apple Tree†which was also made into two
separate radio programs over forty years earlier: Lady Esther Almanac on CBS in 1942 and Mercury Summer Theatre in 1946. Obviously the source material
proved to be palatable enough to audiences to warrant adaptations in both the
aural and visual spectrums. Director Piers Haggard, known for more sinister
fare such as The Blood on Satan’s Claw
(1971) and Venom (1981), directs from
the late Penelope Mortimer’s adapted screenplay.
Frank
Ashton is played by James Wilby, who was coming off the heels of Maurice (1987) and A Handful of Dust (1988) at the time. Ashton (changed from Ashurst
in the short story) arrives at a farm in the summer of 1922 with his wife who goes
off to look for a view to paint. He approaches a dilapidated fence alone with
hesitation and remembrance in a voiceover that can be best described as perfunctory,
much like Rupert Frazer’s ill-executed explanation to the audience concerning
the secret of his bride in Gordon Hessler’s unfairly under-rated The Girl in a Swing (1989). This is a
great misstep right out of the gate, or wet gate, given the film’s transfer
from what appears to be a near-mint theatrical print. The sequence would have
made the film’s denouement resonate even more than it does if Ashton were given
the gift of conveying his emotions by simply exuding them in a wordless opening
scene. The obvious emotion would have sufficed to have been accentuated by the
lush and poignant strains of Georges Delerue’s violins. It’s so out of place,
in fact, that I have a hard time believing that it could have come out of Ms.
Mortimer’s typewriter rather than a last-minute-urging of a studio executive
following a Q-and-A of a sneak preview, the result of cinematically illiterate audience
members wondering what the opening sequence even means. A slow dissolve takes
us to a period nearly twenty years earlier when Frank and a friend stumble upon
the very same gate and farm. A misstep over the gate leaves Frank with a
twisted ankle and a need to convalesce in the abode of the farm’s owners, under
the caring eye of their farm girl, Megan David (Imogen Stubbs), who is desired
by Joe, the farmhand (Jerome Flynn, Game
of Thrones’s Bronn). Her aunt (Susannah York) puts Frank up in a guest room
for a decent price but it isn’t long before Megan and Frank begin eyeing each
other. Frank meets up with Megan at a sheep-shearing festival. Eventually they
make love, read poetry upon a hilltop, and it isn’t long before Joe and Frank
come to blows. Frank makes a decision in an effort to be together that will
forever change Megan’s life.
The
film benefits enormously from the exceptional acting by all of those involved
as it tells the story of people who behave in an orchestrated and proper
manner, only to have their human emotions boil over when their true wants and
desires are threatened. The set design is quaint and colorful, with Lyncombe
Farm in Exmoor National Park in Dulverton, Somerset, England being where the
bulk of the action takes place.
The
U.S. theatrical exhibition of A Summer
Story committed a faux pas so
egregious in nature I felt it was borderline sacrosanct. The carefully
orchestrated main theme of the film which was supposed to play over the end
credits was instead jettisoned for the Moody Blues’s new song at the time, I Know You’re Out There Somewhere. How audiences
didn’t regurgitate and burn down the Village’s Quad Cinema, I’ll never know.
Now
available from the fine folks at Kino Lorber, this new Blu-ray release
mercifully reinstates the late Mr. Delerue’s glorious theme over the end
credits, righting the wrong enacted upon this lovely film thirty years ago. The
soundtrack album from 1988, long out of print, is now available again in a
significantly expanded edition from Music Box Records that can be ordered here from Screen Archives. The Blu-ray image
is touted as a “brand new 2017 scan of the original vault elementsâ€. As there
is no mention of a 2K restoration, I’m assuming that this is 1080P, and the
result is the best that the film has looked since its theatrical exhibition,
easily besting all previous home video incarnations (the VHS version retained
the inharmonious Moody Blues tune). The Blu-ray’s sole extra is a section of no
less than seven trailers for the following films: Conduct Unbecoming (1975), Etoile
(1989), The Salamander (1981), Trouble Bound (1993), The Last Seduction (1994), Aloha,
Bobby and Rose (1975), and Steaming
(1985). Curiously, the trailer for A
Summer Story is not included. However, it can be seen here on Youtube.
The
long-gone Carnegie Hall Cinema in New York showed A Summer Story, and even featured a classy diorama in one of the
windows, depicting a scene from the film. Beautiful. Moviegoing in New York is
a lost art, a thing of the past…
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