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MovieMail's Review
Douglas Sirk is most celebrated, of course, for his glossy melodramas of familial discontent. At first glance, Summer Storm seems like an entirely different kettle of fish – a low budget adaptation of Chekhov's The Shooting Party. Indeed, you could be forgiven for thinking it's one for completists only but this would be a mistake, for Summer Storm is a bona-fide masterpiece.
Told in flashback, it is the story of Fedor Petroff, a provincial judge in the declining years of Tsarist Russia, about to exchange louche living for marital harmony with Nadena Kalenin (Anna Lee). But that is before he claps eyes on Olga (Darnell) a beautiful – and ruthlessly ambitious – peasant girl.
In spite of himself, Fedor becomes utterly infatuated with Olga, even as it costs him his fiancee. But Fedor is not the only man who has designs upon the young woman. During an afternoon's shooting, passions overflow. Someone will be murdered and the lives of all involved will be changed forever.
Sirk spent most of the 1940s as a director for hire but this was a project close to his heart. He had wanted to adapt Chekhov's only substantial novel when he was still working at UFA in Germany and Summer Storm has more in common with his more personal later work than his other freelance work. Fedor is an archetypal Sirkian hero, conflicted and ultimately despairing. Olga, meanwhile, is the sort of upwardly mobile social climber who shows off the director's interest both in materialism and social structures. The decor is, typically, carefully considered and it's filmed with beautiful flowing camerawork.
Not the least of the attractions is George Sanders. The film gives him a rare chance to act, rather than simply declaim his lines is a sardonic manner. He is truly sensational, giving more of himself here than he does in any other role. It's a cruel reminder of how infrequently Hollywood provided him with material worthy of his talents.
This DVD represents, then, a major rediscovery. Douglas Sirk himself numbered it amongst his best films; He was being modest. It might be his greatest.
Linda Darnell and George Sanders star in Summer Storm, Douglas Sirk's adaptation of Chekhov short story, The Shooting Party. Sirk himself numbered this among his very best films.
Darnel plays Olga, an alluring peasant woman who lures cynical aristocrat Fedor away from his fiancee, with tragic consequences.
