SUBJECTS

Man-woman relationships -- Drama, Mistresses -- Sweden -- Drama, Sex -- Drama

Smiles of a Summer Night

(Sommarnattens leende)

featuring

Eva Dahlbeck, Gunnar Björnstrand, Ulla Jacobsson, Harriet Andersson,

One of the cinema’s great erotic comedies. The plot is an Ophulsian ronde of love affairs and intrigues revolving around a middle-aged lawyer (Gunnar Björnstrand); his young wife who remains a virgin; his former mistress, a sophisticated stage actress (Eva Dahlbeck); her lover, and his wife. They gather for a weekend at the country estate of the actress’s elderly mother, who works a kind of magic on this ménage of infinite possibilities. A true parody of the ridiculous male, this is a comic working-out of an idea suggested so tragically in Bergman’s Sawdust and Tinsel—that men are a species of beast who turn to women to save them from being totally humiliated. Not always a smart move.

Judy Bloch
FILM DETAILS 
Screenwriter
  • Ingmar Bergman
Cinematographer
  • Gunnar Fischer
Language
  • Swedish
  • with English subtitles
Print Info
  • B&W
  • DCP
  • 108 mins
Source
  • Janus Films
CINEFILES

CineFiles is an online database of BAMPFA's extensive collection of documentation covering world cinema, past and present.

View Smiles of a Summer Night documents  

The passion of Ingmar Bergman (program), Cinematheque Ontario/a division of Toronto International Film Festival Group, Bart Testa, 2005

Ingmar Bergman's magic lantern: life as art in retrospect (program note), Hopkins Center of Dartmouth College, Ulrike Rainer, 1988

Smiles of a summer night (review), Village Voice, Tom Allen, 1987

Smiles of a summer night (distributor materials), Janus Films, 1973

Smiles of a summer night (program note), Art Film Publications, Pauline Kael, 1962

Smiles of a summer night (article), University of California Press Journals Division. Film Quarterly, Eugene Archer, 1959

Smiles of a summer night (review), Sight and Sound, John Gillett, 1956

Sommarnattens leende (review), Variety, 1956

Sommarnattens leende (review), Monthly Film Bulletin, J.G., 1956

Smiles of a summer night (exhibitor manual), Janus Films, 1955

Displaying 10 of 19 publicly available documents.


View all Smiles of a Summer Night documentation on CineFiles.