Customer Rating: 
Summary: One of the greatest performances by an actress on film!
Comment: Summer and Smoke has Geraldine Page as a woman in love with a young man next door. She lives in a parsonage with her dictatorial, repressed father, and a mentally ill mother. The film unflods and we see the tragedy approaching, and Ms Page becoming more and more aware of it, culminating in her final scene.
The lyricism of her acting, her gestures, her inner pleading, and her silences are wrenching and strangely evocative of how things are for many people..no hope left, but the edge that rejection and despair give to us in odd ways, making it possible to go on, in an aloien world, dersiring death as the next step that must be taken.
See this film with her, and witness greatness of the highest order. The rest of cast is excellent, especially Una Merkel as her mother, and Laurence Harvey as the man Ms Page loves.
The score by Elmer Bernstein is so beautiful,very plaintive, and elegiac at last, as the final notes of the harp underpin the conclusion of the film.
Peter Glenville directed this and he is to be complimented for it. The James Poe script, along with Meade Roberts, is far more faithful than Richard Brooks' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof or Sweet Bird of Youth, the latter , however, has Ms Page, so do not miss it.
I wish it were on DVD or even on TCM, but, at least there is the laser version in widescreen and the VHS version, but it needs to be seen in Panavision.
Buy this gem, and revel in the art of Geraldine Page, the glory of cinema.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Summer and Smoke
Comment: I collect nostalgia, ....and this is a prize! What acting...You just can't find good actimg like this these days....those days are gone.Thank goodness for modern tecnology we can still see the likes of Bette Davis, Geraldine Page, (When did she die?)edward G. Robinson, etc. Anyway,my sister and I watch these films and really yearn for the old days. Laurence Harvey was a dreamboat,and I loved his accent. This tape is to be viewed on a rainy afternoon, while enjoying a favorite cup of tea..........Sandee .
Customer Rating:
Summary: Page: Shatteringly brilliant
Comment: Thank God for the wonders of Ms. Geraldine Page. If it weren't for her, I doubt that the film would have the same effect. A tragedy unfolds and Ms. Page gives us all emotional aspects of the character she portrays. It is hard to believe that she is not Alma (the character she plays) because her sense of reality in the film is so strong. A lesson for all actors -- she has obviously done her homework -- she is concentrated and resonates with that human pain that exists within all of us. I sorely miss her. I remember seeing this film as a child in the theater and young as I was, I knew I was watching someone extraordinary. We would have sorely lost out without her.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Summer Viewing Tradition
Comment: I cannot get through a summer without seeing this fine film. For me,it captures the sad brevity of summer and the classic melancholy of Tennessee Williams. Paige's performance is a treasure; Harvey's equally memorable. Bernstein's score frames the story perfectly. This movie is an underrated masterpiece. Why it has not been released on DVD is, indeed, baffling to me.
Customer Rating:
Summary: More brilliance from my darling Geraldine
Comment: OK...OK...here I go again on the peerless Miss Page...this one will be quite succinct...
SHE IS MAGNIFICENT! RENT IT! BUY IT! DON'T MISS IT!
...where is the DVD?
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