The Bottom Line
A cheerful and thoroughly entertaining comedy.
Pros
- Ingmar Bergman's first international success
- Sharp, witty dialogue
Cons
- Bergman at his lightest--if you want gravitas, get "The Seventh Seal" instead
Description
- Ingmar Bergman, Sweden. 1955.
- 108 mins.
- Criterion-quality restored image and sound, with newly translated subtitles
- Video introduction by Ingmar Bergman
- Conversation with film historian Peter Cowie and writer Jorn Donner
- Original Swedish trailer
- 24-page booklet with essays by Pauline Kael and John Simon
Guide Review - Smiles of a Summer Night DVD
On a turn-of-the-century country estate, three couples drink from a mysterious wine and hope to disentangle their crossed love affairs--the stodgy lawyer whose virgin wife is in love with the son from his first marriage, the jealous Count and the bitter young Countess, and the aging actress who was a mistress to them all...while the carefree maid frolicks in the hay with butler. This lusty comedy of manners plays like a lighter "Rules of the Game," concentrating on the tangled affairs of the heart instead of the social commentary that characterizes Renoir's classic. The film's success at the 1955 Cannes Film Festival allowed Bergman to make "The Seventh Seal."
