SUMMER SHORTS
Tomorrow is the first official day of smelly armpits season (unless, of course, you live in the southern hemisphere of earth — or in any hemisphere of Ur-anus, where, they say, it stinks the year round). To greet the season, I’m saluting summer with a look back at several good old summer films (and I mean films that actually have “summer” in the title).
It’s unthinkable that there’s no unstinkable way of sweating as I wrack my brain composing a fulsome introduction to each movie, so I’ll make do with a minimum of b.s. (background setting) preceding each clip….then sum(mer) it all up with bonus b.s. at post’s end.
First we have SUMMERTIME (1955), starring Katherine Hepburn as a spinster vacationing in Venice. After meeting and being attracted to shop owner Rossano Brazzi in his antiques store, they unexpectedly encounter each other again in this scene:
Next: IN THE GOOD OLD SUMMERTIME (1949) starring Judy Garland & Van Johnson as lonelyhearts pen pals in a musical remake of THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER (1940), directed by Ernst Lubitsch and starring Jimmy Stewart. Here is the trailer:
Last we have SUMMER AND SMOKE (1961), a film adaptation of a Tennessee Williams play, neither of which I have seen, but which I include here because its title serves as a “Perfect!” lead-in to this anecdote told by the late actor Tony Randall (and which relates back to the first of our films):
David Lean, one of the world’s finest directors, is a meticulous and fastidious craftsman, compulsive and uncompromising about getting things exactly the way he wants them. There is a scene in Summertime in which the [female] owner of a Venetian pensione arranges a tryst with a young American guest at night on the terrace of the pensione. Lean put the couple in two high-backed wicker chairs that completely envelope them, placed with their backs to the camera so that all the lens could see were her left hand holding his right hand and puffs of white smoke from their cigarettes curling above the backs of the chairs. The brief scene, which could have been shot with any two people sitting in the chairs and the voices of the couple dubbed in later, took an entire night and a carton of cigarettes to film. Lean made the two actors do it over and over. Just as dawn was about to break, Lean finally got a shot that satisfied him.
“Perfect! Perfect!” Lean exclaimed enthusiastically. “The puffs were perfect!”
It seems we’ve come to the end — but where, you might ask, is the promised “bonus b.s.”? Will you settle for the bonus without the b.s.? Here is the trailer for the aforementioned THE SHOP AROUND THE CORNER, directed by that master of “the Lubitsch touch” of happy memory to Golden Age film buffs:
Ricardo 12:51 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
Apropos of nearly nothing, I noticed the other day that “Wet Hot American Summer” was available on Netflix, Sr. Muse. If that doesn’t make you want to subscribe, whatever will?
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mistermuse 7:39 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
“Wet Hot American Summer’ sounds too cerebral for my tastes, Ricardo, but thanks anyway for the heads up.
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linnetmoss 6:55 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
I do love “The Shop Around the Corner”! When I hear about “Summertime,” I always think of the story that Hepburn fell into a Venetian canal and got a terrible ear infection. It may be a beautiful city, but the water is icky!
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calmkate 7:27 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
I remember that cane chair smoking scene well 🙂
need to work on your bs …
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mistermuse 7:36 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
Calmkate, when you’re retired, you just take things as they come. 🙂
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calmkate 7:48 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink
ah us ozzies specialise in bs .. you’re never too old, need a few lessons 🙂
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mistermuse 7:32 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
Linnet, I appreciate your comment. Perhaps I should should have noted in my post that SUMMERTIME was filmed on location in Venice. Here is the scene in which Hepburn falls into the canal:
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Garfield Hug 7:51 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
Lol!! “Season of smelly armpits!!” 😂😂
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mistermuse 8:11 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
Perhaps you’ve heard of the old phrase, “It’s the pits!” — it originally referred to stinky armpits, then came to metaphorically mean anything that stinks. And that’s my trivia lesson for today!
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Garfield Hug 9:09 am on June 20, 2017 Permalink
*claps loudly with thanks* 👍😃
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Don Frankel 5:37 pm on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
We can’t have summer without..
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mistermuse 6:39 pm on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
Thanks, Don. For those who may wonder who is the singer with the beautiful soprano voice, her name is Harolyn (not a typo) Blackwell.
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D. Wallace Peach 6:32 pm on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
I haven’t seen any of your Summertime movies. I liked Hepburn as a kid and should pick that one up. I fell into a canal in Holland, so I can relate. 😀
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mistermuse 6:51 pm on June 20, 2017 Permalink |
Diana, no doubt your fall into the canal in Holland was no Dutch treat (except perhaps to a few juvenile bystanders who may have thought it was funny), but I’m sure you will find Kathryn Hepburn and SUMMERTIME to be a treat. Enjoy!
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D. Wallace Peach 7:57 pm on June 20, 2017 Permalink
I was eleven and my Dutch cousins thought it was funny but were polite enough not to laugh. 😀
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BroadBlogs 1:09 am on June 23, 2017 Permalink |
And from what I’m reading about climate change we could have smelly armpits a lot longer. Unfortunately accompanied by widespread heat alerts and drought in the west.
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mistermuse 7:28 am on June 23, 2017 Permalink |
You’re right — climate change is the pits!
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RMW 12:53 pm on June 28, 2017 Permalink |
Summertime is one of my all-time favorite movies (I do have quite a few on my list). The romance between Hepburn and Brazzi left so much to the imagination, making it even more “romantic.” I can’t imagine either actor being willing to bare it all in front of the camera! Thank heavens…
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