The Picasso Summer ** (1969, Albert Finney, Yvette Mimieux, Luis Miguel Dominguín) – Classic Movie Review 10,038

The weird and intriguing 1969 drama film The Picasso Summer is written by Ray Bradbury, based on his 1957 short story In a Season of Calm Weather, and stars Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux.

Serge Bourguignon and Robert Sallin’s weird and intriguing 1969 drama film The Picasso Summer is written by Ray Bradbury (under the pseudonym Douglas Spaulding), based on his 1957 short story In a Season of Calm Weather, and stars Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux.

Albert Finney plays bored and jaded San Francisco architect George Smith, who proposes to his wife Alice (Yvette Mimieux) that they fly to France that evening in search of Pablo Picasso, the inspirational artist who can pursue his dreams with abandon.

The cinematography is by future Academy Award winner Vilmos Zsigmond and it also boasts a famous score by Michel Legrand, whose ‘Summer Me, Winter Me’ is the main motif.

But Warner Bros rejected Bourguignon’s rough cut and hired Sallin to reshoot some scenes and to film a new ending. However, they still did not release it in US cinemas, selling it to TV, with Sallin receiving sole director credit.

The film concept is Sixties airy fairy but it is also quite charming, and the film itself is in the interesting category, with the characters, attitudes and story all a product of their era, and shedding light on it.

Also in the cast are the Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín as Himself (the bullfighter), Theo Marcuse as The Host, Jim Connell as The Artist, Peter Madden, Tutte Lemkow, Graham Stark, Kathryn Reynolds, Marty Ingels, Georgina Cookson, Stephen Scott, Miki Iveria, Bee Duffell and Sopwith Camel as The Band at the Party. Also Yul Brynner appears unbilled. And Lucia Bosè (who was married to Dominguín) appears uncredited as Woman.

Sopwith Camel was an American rock band associated with the San Francisco psychedelic rock scene of the mid 1960s.

In a Season of Calm Weather was first published in Playboy (January 1957) and later anthologised in the book A Medicine for Melancholy.

Bradbury’s pseudonym here Douglas Spaulding is a protagonist in several of Bradbury’s works, most notably Dandelion Wine.

Bradbury discussed making The Picasso Summer with François Truffaut while making Fahrenheit 451. They even met up with Picasso but Truffaut eventually checked out.

Herschensohn recalled the final shot was filmed in Catalina, California, because it resembled the Southern France coast. Herschensohn did the sand drawings and local lookalike Duke Fishman played Picasso.

The Picasso Summer runs 90 minutes, is made by Campbell-Silver-Cosby Corporation and Warner Bros/ Seven Arts, is released by CBS (1972) (US) (TV), is written by Ray Bradbury [Douglas Spaulding] (screenplay), Edwin Boyd (screenplay) and Wes Herschensohn (film concept), is shot by Vilmos Zsigmond, is produced by Roy Silver (executive producer), Bruce Campbell and Wes Herschensohn, and is scored by Michel Legrand (also conductor).

Lucia Bosè (28 January 1931 – 23 March 2020).

Italian actress Lucia Bosè (28 January 1931 – 23 March 2020) died at the age of 89 from pneumonia at the General Hospital of Segovia, Spain, on 23 March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

She fell in love with Spanish bullfighter Luis Miguel Dominguín during the filming of Muerte de un ciclista, married in 1955 and gave up acting to marry and raise a family. Their first son, Spanish pop singer and actor Miguel Bosé, was born in Panama on 3 April 1956. Dominguín infamously disapproved of Bosé’s budding sexuality. Luchino Visconti was Miguel’s godfather and Pablo Picasso was godfather to his sister Paola Dominguín.

Apparently, though, allegedly Lucia’s lack of interest in bullfighting and Luis’s marital infidelities were problems. They divorced in 1968 and she returned full time to films, appearing in Fellini Satyricon (1969) and the Taviani Brothers’ Under the Sign of Scorpio (1969), filming till One More Time (2013).

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,038

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