Sommarnattens leende

Plot synopsis:
The film takes place in Sweden around the turn of the twentieth century. Fredrik Egerman is a middle-aged lawyer married to a 19-year-old beauty, Anne. Their two-year marriage is still unconsummated, due to Anne's reluctance. Fredrik has a son, Henrik, from his marriage to his late first wife. Henrik is in his early twenties and is studying to be a minister but is currently tormented by his love for his step-mother, who secretly loves him in return. Henrik is distracting himself from his urges by attempting an inconclusive affair with Fredrik's lusty young servant, Petra.
Between his two marriages, Fredrik had an affair with a prominent stage actress, the beautiful Desiree Armfeldt, but she broke off the relationship. Desiree now has a young son named Fredrik, born shortly after her affair with Fredrik Egerman. (It is implied, but never directly stated, that little Fredrik Armfeldt is the son of Fredrik Egerman.) Desiree is now having an affair with an army officer, Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm. The Count's wife, Charlotte, is an old friend of Anne Egerman.
Fredrik goes to see Desiree one night to pour out his marital troubles to her and ask for her help. Fredrik falls into a puddle outside Desiree's house, and Desiree dresses him in the Count's nightshirt. The violently jealous Count shows up and orders Fredrik to leave. After Fredrik goes, the Count and Desiree argue and subsequently decide to part amicably. When the Count returns home, he tells Charlotte about the encounter and orders her to tell Anne Egerman about Fredrik's supposed infidelity (though no infidelity actually occurred). When Charlotte visits Anne, she confesses that she loves the Count despite everything and would do anything to be loved in return.
To solve these woes, Desiree has her mother invite all the characters to her country house for Midsummer Night, the shortest night of the year, a traditional observance in Sweden, when many party-goers stay awake all night until dawn. Desiree and Charlotte become temporary allies. Henrik and Anne, unexpectedly finding themselves alone together in a bedroom, consummate their relationship and elope with the assistance of Petra and her new lover Frid, another servant. Charlotte then joins Fredrik in the garden pavilion. Learning his wife is with Fredrik, the Count bursts in and challenges Fredrik to a game of Russian roulette. Fredrik loses but the Count had loaded the revolver with soot so neither party was ever in danger. The Count reunites with his wife, his feelings for her renewed by his jealousy. Desiree comforts Fredrik and he asks her not to leave him. The dilemmas of the four pairs of lovers appear to be happily resolved in the course of a night, said by Frid to have smiled three smiles upon them all.

Tags: comedy

Review:
"Smiles of a Summer Night" is one of the most elegant and charming carnal comedies ever filmed.
"Smiles of a Summer Night" was a great success with both the critics and the audiences and was submitted for the Cannes film festivalwithout its creator's knowledge.
And then I read the title, "Smiles of a Summer Night" by Ingmar Bergman." He recalls how poor he was then and he borrowed the money for a ticket to Cannes from Bibi Anderson whom he dated at the time.
The story is a time honored one, referencing the same tradition of romantic complications found in Shakespeare's A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM and Rostand's LA RONDE: every one is either in love with or married to the wrong person.A famous actress with two very different lovers invites both, their wives, and the son of one lover to her mother's country estate in the hope of sorting out the romantic entanglements to her satisfaction--and the result is considerable charm and unexpectedly dry wit.
Never quite veering over into broad farce but never sinking into romantic sentimentality, it is a very precisely written tale, and both cast and director make the most of it.In the face of Bergman's later work, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT may seem rather slight, and indeed both psychology and cinematography is considerably less complex than one expects.
It is in every way a charming film that Bergman fans will enjoy.Incidentally, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT was successfully translated to the stage as the musical A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, the score of which includes the famous "Send In The Clowns." Fans of the original film will be interested to compare the two works.Gary F.
Charming, light-hearted, delicate, and romantic are not the terms most people think to use when describing Bergman films, and yet "Smiles of a Summer Night" is all of these.
Men, as a gender, do not come off well in Bergman's charming sex comedy Smiles of a Summer Night, made only one year before his breakthrough hit, The Seventh Seal.
Another over-the-top male character is Count Malcolm (Jarl Kulle) a poseur whose only response to his wife's infidelity is to challenge the paramour to a duel or a game of Russian Roulette.In Bergman's world, men are childish, selfish, and arrogant.
Though it remains unclear as to why this is the case, nonetheless, Frederik is not at a loss for romance, taking up with a famous actress the equally lovely Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlbeck), a relationship that began soon after Frederik's first wife died but never revealed to Anne.
Here they all drink a mystery wine and sort out their relationships in a remarkably satisfying manner.Smiles of a Summer Night came as quite a surprise to me, being used to the philosophical Bergman of Wild Strawberries and The Seventh Seal (yet always with an added bit of humor).
I found it thoroughly enjoyable, an opinion apparently shared with Woody Allen whose film A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy mirrored it and Stephen Sondheim who based his musical "A Little Night Music" on the film.
"Smiles of a Summer Night" is a pretty edgy film, touching with great candor subject matters somewhat taboo today.
This is certainly one of the great sex comedies and certain to be a good introduction to Bergman for those concerned about some of his tougher films.
So I did like it--I give it an 8.Later musicalized by Stephen Sondheim as "A Little Night Music" and disastrously remade (sort of) in Woody Allen's "A Midsummers Night Sex Comedy".
He uses this emotional logic with his actors for this comedy of manners and the heart (pre-Seventh Seal), where he has his screenplay wonderfully unfold the character's amusing feelings on love, sex, and dealing with the opposite gender, all the while making sure his players know the words and the music.
Harriet Andersson, also a regular in other Bergman films (a key one being Cries and Whispers where she played the dying woman), appears as a young, joyful woman, who even gives the lawyer's son, a priest, a bit of lust here and there.In fact, Smiles of a Summer Night is Bergman's most joyous film, though that's not to say there can't be grand moments of joy in his dramas and reflections on god.
Woody Allen famously based A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy on this movie, thus coming out as a Bergman fan.
Frankly, I think Allen has more talent for comedy than Bergman, but Smiles of a Summer Night has more depth and more interesting development of ideas than the Allen follow-up.
In the beginning of the Twentieth Century, the successful fifty years old lawyer Fredrik Egerman (Gunnar Björnstrand) has been married for three years with his naive nineteen years old wife Anne (Ulla Jacobsson), who is still virgin.
They go to her house, Frederik falls in one puddle and she gives the robe and the pajamas of her present lover, the military Count Carl Magnus Malcolm (Jarl Kulle), who is married with Anne's friend Countess Charlotte Malcolm (Margit Carlquist).
Along the night, with the three smiles of love, four couples are formed."Sommarnattens Leende" is a delightful, cynical and witty romantic comedy with wonderful dialogs and situations.
Showing a magnificent art direction and cinematography, this sardonic story discloses three different types of love: the pure of the youngsters, represented by Anne and Henrik; the silly and quite naive, represented by the maid Petra and the groom Frid; and the cynical and malicious of the arrogant Malcolm and Charlotte and the Machiavellian Desiree and Frederik.
I have seen just about all of Bergman's available films and Smiles of a Summer Night is among my favorites.
(I'd never seen the show.)  Smiles served as a good beginning to Bergman films:  it's got some very dry humour, some very physical comedy, and the trademark panorama of morality that accompanies a Bergman character set.
Bergman made many films, this one made him."Smiles Of A Summer Night" is a landmark in the Solemn Swede's carrier.
As late as in an interview recorded in 2003, Ingmar Bergman agreed to call "Smiles Of A Summer Night" a watershed in his film career.
SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHTS is an intelligent, honest and very funny comedy about complicated love relationships between men and women.One prominent lawyer, who is faced with problems in his marriage, requires the help of his former mistress.
Despite the cynical views on love and sexuality by Mr. Bergman, the end of the film is still happy and all the protagonists are "satisfied".Characterization is commendable.
Harriet Andersson (Petra) is lively and merry maid and Åke Fridell (Frid) is a coachman who explains to us the existence of three types of love on a summer night.This is a playful comedy in which love conquers frustration and tragedy turns into farce..
The math doesn't work out until an uninvited guest also shows up.The film's plot—which involves switching partners on a summer night—has been adapted many times, most notably as the theatrical musical, A Little Night Music by Stephen Sondheim, Hugh Wheeler and Harold Prince, which opened on Broadway in 1973, and as Woody Allen's film "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy" (1982).What actually strikes me about the film is how generally upbeat it is.
Ingmar Bergman's "Smiles of a Summer Night" is a charming comedy (in its way) about love and romance.
Fredrik's grown son, Henrik (Bjorn Bjelvenstam) is a minister and in love with Anne; Desiree Armfeldt (Eva Dahlback) is having an affair with Count Carl-Magnus (Jarl Kulle), but she's still got it bad for her ex-lover, the aforementioned Fredrik.
The starkness of the black and white images is quite stunning, and the landscape shots look like famous photographs.This is different from many Bergman films that were to come, and it's a lovely reminder that this man could do anything he set his mind to, including send in the clowns..
Bergman's Smiles on a Summer Night is a delightful and mild-mannered comedic effort studying love and the different natures of relationships those of opposing genders go through with one another in regards to feeling strongly for the opposite sex.
It is quite the involving, rather scathing film looking at people rich in attitudes towards culture and finer things but utterly devoid of any kind of sensible or moral outlook on sexual relations; a quite brutal comedy covering people sneering down at those of a generational difference below, despite those of whom occupy such a space are infinitely the more well-natured and humanist amidst all the other fatuity.The film begins with a lawyer named Fredrik Egerman (Björnstrand) occupying his decorated office, a rich space inside of a large and rich manor house in Sweden.
From the manner in which his general location is decorated with props and items, we can tell the man has a substantially large amount of money and appears both regimental and thorough in his business, particularly when the time comes to speak to his younger son Henrick (Bjelfvenstam) who's a piano player; is studying to become a priest and has feelings for both his mother-in-law Anne (Jacobsson) and a young house-servant called Petra (Andersson).
Furthermore, the actress he was once in a relationship with unfolded not so soon after a previous wife died thus implying a mentality of the man as one that enjoys the company of women.Frederik observes this actress-come-former lover Desiree Armfeldt (Dahlbeck) on stage, Desiree given a big build up as she lingers off stage by the characters within the play further-still characters within the film, dialogue to do with the power she has over most men complimenting what will later transpire in the film as a whole; her appearance on stage is greeted by an array of applause and she is the focal point of everybody's attention.
Their relationship and knowing of one another will come to form a great part of Bergman's film.
He clashes with Frederik when Carl-Magnus finds him in Desiree's back-stage dressing room, and Bergman frames them in profile with Desiree's beaming figure standing between them highlighting what, or who, it is they are essentially clashing over, face to face.The film is deceptive in its initial beginning and surroundings, the film not so much about a love triangle involving Fredrik, this actress and her current lover as much it is about human nature's reaction toward love and firm relationships; the sorts of relationships people get into with those of the opposite gender and the vast characteristics and mannerisms that define these relationships as perpetrated by those enacting it.
Secondly, the Bergman film also looks prettier--almost like a fairy tale at times.While "sex farces" are NOT my cup of tea, if you MUST watch one, this one's about as good as any..
It's by far Bergman's most accessible film and it makes one wish the super-sober director had let his hair down more frequently.Woody Allen aped "Smiles of a Summer Night" in "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy," but that film does not do justice to the original material.
While not quite one of my favourites from the supreme Swedish director Ingmar Bergman, Smiles of a Summer Night is still a film that I was captivated by and would wilfully see again.
The actor Jarl Kulle is doing one of the most classic swedish comedy roles ever(and maybe one off the best).I have not seen so many Bergman films yet (this the Devils eye and the BIG masterpiece the seventh seal).But I hope that I will see more off his films soon.
It tells the story about Fredrik Egerman, a middle-aged attorney who lives in a small town in the 19th century with his adult son from a previous marriage named Henrik, who is a theology student, his 19-year-old wife Anne who loves him as if he was her father, and his young servant Petra.
All of the sudden there is a knock on the door, and in walks Desirée's lover, a married army officer named Count Carl-Magnus Malcolm who takes one look at the man whom he sees is wearing his clothes and challenges him to a duel.Distinctly and engagingly directed by Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, this multifaceted fictional tale which is narrated from multiple viewpoints, draws an intriguing portrayal of numerous converging relationships between young and middle-aged men and women.
While notable for it's atmospheric milieu depictions, stellar production design by Swedish art director and production designer P.A. Lundgren (1911-2011), black-and-white cinematography by Swedish cinematographer Gunnar Fischer (1910-2011) and costume design by German-Swedish costume designer Mago (1925-2008), this dialog-driven, narrative-driven and humorous comedy-drama depicts some condensed studies of character and contains a good score by Swedish composer Erik Nordgren (1913-1992).This charming, rhythmic, theatrical and somewhat romantic chamber drama from the mid-1950s about love, marriage, infidelity and interpersonal relations which became Ingmar Bergman's first internationally acclaimed feature film, is impelled and reinforced by it's quick-witted dialog, colorful characters, interrelating stories, subtle character development, cogent narrative structure and the brilliant acting performances by Swedish actor Gunnar Björnstrand (1909-1986), Swedish actor and director Jarl Kulle (1927-1997), Swedish actor Björn Bjelfvenstam and Swedish actresses Harriet Andersson, Margit Carlqvist, Ulla Jackobsen (1929-1982), Bibi Andersson and actress and writer Eva Dahlbeck (1920-2008).
Smiles of a Summer Night (1955) **** (out of 4) Delightful romantic comedy from Ingmar Bergman about various couples whom end up at an estate where love, relationships and sex are the topics.
It's hard to believe that Woody Allen failed to capture much of this film's humor with his semi-remake A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy..
Desiree invites both men and their wives and Egerman's gloomy son Henrik to her mother's country house for the weekend ...This touching, funny and beautifully observed comedy of sexual manners is one of my favourite Bergman films, made just before he was about to become a key figure in world cinema with movies like Det Sjunde Inseglet and Smultronstället.
As with all his work, it's Bergman's insight into the universal frailties of human nature that makes the movie so touching; we have a man who has married for beauty not love, a femme fatale who is tired of twisting men around her finger, young lovers who careen between ecstatic joy and suicidal misery, a man who foolishly ranks his pride above all else, and a self-loathing wife who can't stop loving a cheating husband.
Loosely remade twice; once as a Stephen Sondheim musical (A Little Night Music) and also as a charming Woody Allen farce (A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy).
Even Anne, who at first shows signs of being much too sensitive for her own good, toughens up quite a bit when Charlotte comes to visit and lets her in on her husband's affair by throwing it right back and effectively silencing her into dullness.A beautiful and quite touching comedy, SMILES OF A SUMMER NIGHT is a movie that makes for a perfect introduction into Ingmar Bergman's work even when it's the only flat-out slapstick he's directed and all of his movies following this one are much graver in nature.
Not being so informed about Bergman and his oeuvre as I might be I had somehow formed the impression that he made this light comedy quite some time after and as something of a break from and a contrast to his early dark work like Seventh Seal so I was surprised to read here that Smiles in fact preceded Seal.
After a slight irritation of the clumsy exposition in which two of the clerks employed by the chief character, lawyer Fredrik Egerman, tell each other (and us) that 1) Fredrik has two tickets for the theatre where the star of the show, Desiree Arnfeld, used to be his mistress and 2) that he will be going with his new wife, Anne, who is half his age and leaving his son, Henrik, by a previous marriage, at home, it settled down into a well observed comedy of manners owing a little to a current American film, Baby Doll, in its central story of a child bride who refuses to consummate the marriage but then spinning off another series of lovers both star-crossed and otherwise.
The cast reads like a roll call of the Bergman stock company, Harriet Andersson, Ulla Jacobsson, Gunnar Bjornstrand, Eva Dahlbeck etc and not unnaturally they play as an ensemble.
Ingmar Bergman's 1955 comedy Smiles Of A Summer Night (Sommarnattens Leende) was the film that first garnered him international recognition.
Yes, compared to even more 'intellectual' Hollywood comedies of recent vintage, like Sideways, Smiles Of A Summer Night is far deeper, but there is truth to the old Woody Allen claim that drama is 'sitting at the grown ups table'.
In fact, Allen was so smitten with this film that he tried to do his own version of it a quarter century later, in A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy.
After "Smiles of a Summer Night" was released, the studio showed it at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was a sensation.
Bergman did "The Seventh Seal," which sealed his reputation as a world-class director.I haven't seen "A Midsumer Night's Sex Comedy" by Woody Allen since it came out, but I'd be surprised if "Smiles of a Summer Night" were not an inspiration for Allen's film.
I found Smiles of a Summer night to be one of his best, looking over his extraordinary 50-odd year career.The story isn't that complicated; it's a bit less involved than Rules of the Game, to which it might be compared.
I do like the occasional good sounding foreign film, and as this one from Sweden from director Ingmar Bergman (Persona) featured in the book 1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die, how could I miss it.
With all the smiles of the summer night, and after Frederik and Magnus have a game of Russian roulette, with no real bullet, started after two of the girls get their own way, four couples are formed.
I can say I did laugh at some of it, but I was more interested in the sexual romantic elements, played out like Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream or something, it is a very enjoyable romantic comedy.