The Picasso Summer (1969)

User Rating:

6.0/10   

Directors:

Serge Bourguignon
Robert Sallin

Writers:

Edwin Boyd (writer)
Ray Bradbury (story)

Genre:

Drama

Plot:

A San Francisco couple travels to France in search of Pablo Picasso.

Cast

Albert Finney	...	George Smith
Yvette Mimieux	...	Alice Smith
Luis Miguel Dominguín	...	Himself
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Jim Connell
Georgina Cookson
Bee Duffell	...	German woman tourist
Marty Ingels
Miki Iveria
Tutte Lemkow
Peter Madden
Theodore Marcuse		(as Theo Marcuse)
Kay Reynolds
Stephen Scott
Graham Stark	...	Postman

Runtime:

90 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

USA:M (original rating) | USA:PG

Company:

Warner Brothers/Seven Arts

Trivia:

Never released to American theaters; its only showings have been on television. In the original unseen cut, Serge Bourguignon was credited as director. In the television version, Robert Sallin is credited as director. The film played frequently on Bravo in the mid 1990s.

In Pursuit of Picasso

This unusual film is the collaboration of several creative forces - a Ray Bradbury story, with animation created by the Hubleys (directed and "conceived" by producer Wes Herschensohn), a spectacular musical score by Michel Legrand, and co-direction by the near-forgotten Serge Bourguignon (of "Sundays & Cybele"). Unfortunately, it doesn't appear as if all of these people were properly introduced to one another. A successful architect (Finney) decides to chuck it all and run off to the south of France to visit his favorite painter, Pablo Picasso. Alas, Pablo isn't welcoming visitors and despite several attempts at stalking him, our architect-hero finally gives up. Albert Finney gives a frenetic performance with Yvette Mimieux never looking more beautiful beside him. Nothing in the film has anything linear about it, which is probably to its advantage. It is part fiction film, part docu-drama, part art documentary (the amimated Picasso paintings are probably the only real excuse for it - and they often come off as over-literal interpretations of his work). Ah, well, there is the lush music and the Vilmos Zsigmond photography and the elusive spirit of Picasso. Worth watching at least once.