Violent Summer (1959)
"Estate violenta" (original title)

Summer, 1943: wealthy youth in the Riccione district of Rimini play while the war gets closer. Carlo Caremoli, a young man who follows the crowd, has found ways to avoid military service. ... See full summary »

Director:

Valerio Zurlini

Writers:

Valerio Zurlini (story), Suso Cecchi D'Amico (screenplay),

Stars:

Eleonora Rossi Drago, Jean-Louis Trintignant, Lilla Brignone

3 wins & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview:
Eleonora Rossi Drago	...	Roberta Parmesan
Jean-Louis Trintignant	...	Carlo Caremoli (as Jean Louis Trintignant)
Lilla Brignone	...	La madre di Roberta
Raf Mattioli	...	Giorgio
Federica Ranchi	...	Maddalena
Cathia Caro	...	Serena
Giampiero Littera	...	Daniele
Bruno Carotenuto	...	Giulio
Tina Gloriani	...	Emma (as Tina Gloriani c.s.c.)
Enrico Maria Salerno	...	Ettore Caremoli - il padre di Carlo
Jacqueline Sassard	...	Rosanna

Storyline

Summer, 1943: wealthy youth in the Riccione district of Rimini play while the war gets closer. Carlo Caremoli, a young man who follows the crowd, has found ways to avoid military service. Then, on the beach, he meets Roberta, a war widow with a child. Roberta's mother warns Roberta to avoid Carlo, but to her, he seems attentive and to her daughter he is kind. Romance develops. Within a few weeks, Roberta is risking everything. Can there be a resolution between passion, on the one hand, and war, duty, and social expectation on the other?

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Genres:

Drama

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Details

Country:

Italy France

Language:

Italian

Release Date:

13 November 1959 (Italy)

Also Known As:

Violent Summer

Filming Locations:

Bologna, Emilia-Romagna, Italy

Company Credits

Production Co:

Titanus, Société Générale de Cinématographie (S.G.C.)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Mono (Westrex Recording System)

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Did You Know?

Goofs

Although set in 1943, settings, clothing and hairstyles are from the late 1950s.

User Reviews

brilliant, old-fashioned melodrama

Jean-Louis Trintignat plays the draft-dodging son of a powerful Nazi in 1943 Italy, in a prelude to Bertolucci's "The Conformist," who falls in love with an older war widow, in an absolutely brilliant performance by Eleonora Rossi Drago, (what else has she ever been in?) featuring a brilliantly choreographed sequence to the song "Temptation," reminding me of Fassbinder's "The Bitter Tears of Petra Van Kant," this is one of the better scenes one is ever likely to see in all of cinema where the lovers dance and fall in love around a nude male statue oblivious to the war raging outside, similar to Oshima's "In the Realm of the Senses," there is an extraordinary pacing to the film, an intense love affair, reminiscent of Cary Grant and Ingrid Bergman in Hitchcock's "Notorious," this is a beautifully written, old-fashioned melodrama, the likes of which we just don't see any more.