The Picasso Summer (1969) User Reviews

Train wreck of a movie and a squander of the actor's talent.

[Bob-45 · 4/10 · 6 July 2013]

Originally completed in 1969 but not released by Warners Bros. TV division until 1972 and broadcast on CBS late night movie, "The Picasso Summer" demonstrates, in the most negative manner, what happens when a film director and the "groupthink" of the film's producers are in complete disagreement.

Clocking in at a scant 90 minutes, 60 minutes of which are devoted to frequently tedious animation of Picasso's works, Warner Bros. would have been better served by entirely jettisoning the framing story, that of self-absorbed architect (Albert Finney) and his loving, long suffering wife (Yvette Mimieux). The framing story is reminiscent of the excellent 1967 film, "Two for the Road," which also starred Finney, but with Audrey Hepburn playing the long suffering wife. Hepburn and Mimieux project similar spiritual images, but Mimieux has the added bonus of a sexiness, of which Hepburn could only dream. Think of Jennifer Love Hewitt playing Hepburn (which she did, for a TV movie), but with Hepburn's acting abilities. Even so, most of that 30 scant minutes of live action consists of footage either of peripheral characters, "60's style artsy" footage of the Finney and Mimiuex observing Picasso's art, attending a "pop art" party (the film's worst live action sequence) or bicycling through France. Actual dramatic screen time between Finney and Mimieux clocks in at about 10 minutes.

Fortunately, Warner Bros. did not jettison the live action sequences, because of a roughly 8 minute segment involving Mimieux, an elderly painter and his wife. Of the live action, that is one of the few segments which does not appear to be ugly work-print; and the two scenes are so profound, they make including the live action worthwhile.

Given the talent involved, (Oscar-nominated Serge Bourguignon, five-time scar-nominated Albert Finney, two-time Golden Globe-nominated Yvette Mimieux, Hugo Award-winning classic fantasy/science fiction writer Ray Bradbury, three-time Oscar winner Michelle Legrand and Oscar-winner and multi-nominated cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond, the fate of the "The Picasso Summer" seems especially tragic. However, if you do happen to come across "The Picasso Summer" and are not a particularly huge fan of Picasso (which, I am not), copy it and fast forward to the last twenty minutes, as they are worth the watch and are worthy of a "10" rather than the "4" I gave the movie overall.

A great idea that falls short.

[maeander · 5/10 · 4 June 2010]

In 1969, a San Francisco architect and his beautiful wife go to Southern France in order to find Picasso. Not just his work, but the man himself.

What could be more appealing than a movie that takes place in France with two such attractive stars (circa 1969) as Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux. Museums, villas, scenery and the artwork; coupled with the haunting music, should make an incredibly romantic picture. At times it almost comes close.

The animated Picasso art tends to run longer than it should. Still it's clever and inventive. With a few exceptions, the people they run into end up working very well.

But do we really want to know what the Albert Finney character thinks about his meal as he devours a plate of snails with abandon?

The bullfighting sequence stops the film cold. The bull is seen being killed in the ring in slow motion with blood gushing. This is real. No special effects. A momentary still of the bright crimson blood in it's mouth is shown in close-up. What a downer!

The movie is a great idea. The execution, not so much.

Acclaimed?

[robertlauter25 · 4/10 · 10 July 2016]

There are literally 3 reasons for watching this movie. Yvette Mimieux in a bikini, picasso's art made into cartoons and a bull fight, all can be achieved by watching 10 minutes of it on mute, to block out the grating, redundant score that drones on like a nagging woman during a hangover This whole film is a mess, that plays like a woodstock era porn film, only less entertaining.

I hear all sorts of nonsense about Albert Finney agreeing to do the 1981 movie Looker ( a wonderful movie), yet somehow this monstrosity passes as legitimate cinema? The horrid story line plays like a travel column in readers digest. The split screen jigsaw puzzle, multi-spectrum cinema photography resembles a segment of Rowan and Martin's Laugh Inn, and the two leads seem really quite bored, which is no doubt how any sentient being will feel after slogging through 10 minutes of this mess.

Evidently there where issues with the production of this film, directors fired, producer Bill Cosby demanding his name be removed, Picasso refusing to make an actual appearance and so forth, it certainly shows in the final product. I cannot emphasize enough the agony caused by the elevator music that accosts one throughout, the stale dialogue and idiotic story line. How this got any critical acclaim only shows how utterly, defunct so called professional movie criticism has always been. Simply Awful

In Pursuit of Picasso

[tangoviudo · 29 November 2002]

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.

Picasso's Personal Stalker

[bcrumpacker · 5/10 · 30 June 2013]

Other reviewers cover the basics but miss some points. As a threshold issue, a work of art is composed in order to lead the human eye and brain to perceive it in a certain sequence, creating movement and tension between the work's elements. See e.g the composition of The Wreck Of The Medusa. Picasso excelled at this even before WW I, so the animation is superfluous. However, it is trippy and fun, in a dated way. Picasso died in 1973, so he was alive when this movie was made. I'd like to know what he thought of it, but I'm too lazy to research it further.

Next, the movie assumes that Picasso is the ultimate artist, but the script isn't articulate enough to really say why. How dare anyone question this? Well, Picasso is brilliant, but he put out a lot of crap too, some of which is on display here. Personally, I prefer Les Demoiselles D'Avignon.

Evocative soundtrack and cinematography, slim story. Thank you once more, Vilmos Zsigmond! In fact, this movie almost looks like an excuse for the producers to live it up on OPM (other peoples' money) on the Cote D'Azur. Hey, it happens.

SPOILER ALERT! Next, Albert Finney's character is a stalker who can afford to ditch his job and then his wife so he can pursue his obsession with Picasso in a childish, ineffective way. He rings Picasso's doorbell and is rebuffed, probably for good reason; turns into a drunken idiot at the 57 minute mark for no apparent reason; and then takes up bullfighting. Far too much nonsense has been written about that sport, which boils down to sadistic torture of a poor animal for entertainment or other pure BS reasons before killing it. Hey dude, don't play with your food!

Yvette Mimieux is pretty tolerant of Finney's floundering, and she fills out a bikini very nicely. Her chic outfits still look great. Best of all, she quickly grasps what her jackass husband takes the entire movie to figure out: the joy is in the doing, not the finishing. Ironically, the movie's ending is poetic and poignant. I give this one a 5 for its artistic aspirations, and for Yvette, who was poetry in motion.

Good film if about 30-40 minutes were edited out.

[itsjoan · 7/10 · 24 June 2014]

Watching Picasso Summmer I think I can now accept that his work was not poking fun at wannabe art critics. For the 'uneducated eye' one has to wonder if what we're seeing...is how the artist is really viewing something; is it really a creative vision or a put on.

I did come away with a glimmer of understanding and motivation to do some research and reading on Picasso after viewing the film. All I knew about him from an art appreciation class in school is that he had a 'Blue period'.

As I said in the summary title, the morphing segments, while cleverly and creatively carried out, were way too many and way too long to sustain at least this casual viewer. The kernel of a good film was there, it just didn't 'pop.

Yvette: yes Albert: no

[jodyphilip · 5/10 · 24 July 2023]

I'll never understand Albert Finney's apparent popularity. His average looking face is usually frozen in a slight smirk, and he's only slightly more animated during one scene when he comes back drunk to their hotel room.

Yvette is both beautiful and authentic, although why she would be married to fussy Finney is a question not explored.

The big problem is this movie has too many moving parts: travelogue? Ode to Picasso? Or the story of a conflicted marriage? The cartoon sequences seem garish, almost frightening.

Just like in A Light in the Piazza, Yvette is a lovely focal point as she wanders ( alone ) the streets of southern France, and those are my favorite scenes.

Okay, but it ruins the Bradbury story and who's the audience?

[Nozz · 7/10 · 15 March 2014]

This seems to start out as a women's movie. Wouldn't you love to be a beautiful woman with a rich, handsome husband who (as far as we can tell) provides you an elegant lifestyle without requiring either work or money from you? Well, not now you wouldn't, but this was still the 1960s. Today you'd have to be making some contribution to society, other than looking pretty, to justify your existence or you wouldn't be a movie heroine. But the husband is a problem too. One element driving the Bradbury story was that an economic gap kept the man from satisfying his artistic craving; it wasn't just that although he had plenty of money Picasso couldn't be bothered with him. In contrast to the hero of the story, the hero of the movie seems petty in his day-to-day dissatisfaction-- he's doing okay as an architect, but out of a big business complex he got to design no more than the warehouse. Hey, he should count his blessings. But men are that way, in chick flics. And there's pretty scenery, although not often reminiscent of Picasso. But then comes a bullfight, evidently quite unsupervised by the humane society. How many women want to see blood dripping from a dying bull's mouth and hear about how bullfighting functions as a metaphor? No wonder the movie never played in theaters. Bradbury's original ending, in which the man sees Picasso drawing in the sand with a popsicle stick, would have been a better metaphor to stress. The Bradbury man is rewarded with a special experience on the one hand, but he receives a lesson in the evanescence of all things on the other hand. When the movie was originally publicized, I thought that the real Picasso had consented to play that scene. I'm disappointed that he didn't, but the animations were impressive.

picasso slumber

[mossgrymk · 4/10 · 17 August 2023]

I'd rather be in Guernica. Can you imagine how bad Serge Bourguignon's rough cut must have been for Warner Brothers to reject it in favor of this...what? Call it an R rated Rick Steves episode with stupid Picasso animated psychedelia alternating with dopey devices like the ol split screen/jigsaw puzzle as Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux bike around southern France, swim in the Med and copulate at the Carlton. Kind of a "Two For The Road" for idiots. And good luck getting that syrupy Michel Legrand score out of your head anytime soon. I bailed right around the time Mimieux and Finney temporarily split up and suggest you do the same before that. C minus.

animated sequences and thin plot and a bull fight

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 23 July 2023]

San Francisco architect George Smith (Albert Finney) is feeling a little dispirited. He wakes up reinvigorated by his collection of Picasso paintings. He suggests to his wife Alice (Yvette Mimieux) that they go to France to find Pablo Picasso and thank him.

I was expecting a basic travelogue and a minor Picasso retrospective. There isn't much of a plot. There is even less plot than I expected. George finally does something interesting in the last third. The bull fight is interesting, but it adds nothing to the narrative. This is really about Picasso's work being translated into adult-themed animated sequences and various visual stylings. This couple needs a guide or George himself could do more exposition about Picasso. The audience probably needs a helping hand. Quite frankly, they are better off doing an animated short about Picasso's art if they're not going to give drama to this movie. In an aside, how much is that Picasso collection if it's real.

Worked on the Movie and am in the Movie

[d-dujon · 8/10 · 24 May 2013]

I had the pleasure of working on this film in a small capacity. At the time I worked for the Campbell, Silver, Cosby Corporation (the producer's) as a secretary. The office was in Beverly Hills where I met, writer Ray Bradbury who was a dear person. One day Ray asked me to Xerox copies of the script he had written. As I made the copies I began to read the pages. I saw where there was a singer for one of the scenes. I asked Ray if I could be the singer. Ray told me it was fine with him but I would have to speak with Bruce (Campbell) and Roy Silver. I did speak to Roy and he told me Cass Elliot was doing the music for that scene. I very brazenly said to Roy "If Cass doesn't do it can I? He said yes I could. Long story short --Cass was not able to do it and I did. The part of the movie I am in is a party scene that was filmed at attorney Melvin Belli's home. I am in a gray suede slip dress standing by a piano with a pianist (I don't recall his name) who was such a nice person. I am singing an old madrigal called "Hard by a Fountain." In the background is the San Francisco Bay with a freighter passing in the shot. On the terrace is the rock band Sopwith Camel. The animation in this film is amazing. I haven't seen it in years and would love a copy.

"The joy is in doing it"

[evening1 · 4/10 · 29 July 2023]

I love the idea of this film, but it is way too long and repetitious and would have worked better as a short.

As Alice and George, Yvette Mimieux and Albert Finney make for a most attractive couple, but one winces at Alice's overzealous doting on her dour and depressed spouse, as if never noticing that he's hopelessly self-involved.

To the seductive strains of a Michel Legrand score, the couple visits some gorgeous spots along the French Riviera, including a museum housing Picasso's "Guernica," and animation accompanying this segment is compelling. However, two subsequent stretches of cartooning strike one as unnecessary, just plain showing-off.

The movie hits a low point when George decides that in order to "get" Picasso, he must enter the bullfighting ring. I detest the unfair fight of this primitive "sport," and rationalizations spouted by an experienced toreador fall flat. It appears as if a bull is actually sacrificed in this production, and that's a shame.

The best part of this film is its whimsical ending, likely having originated with author Ray Bradbury. In all, the good writer's name deserves better.

The best way to understand Picasso's paintings

[Jan-429 · 10/10 · 3 September 2005]

This is the one thing that explained Picasso's paintings to me, when I just happened to see it on television many years ago.The long animated sequences extending the paintings are quite wonderful;they not only interpret the paintings but also show you why Picasso painted certain things the way he did - face extortions for example. All art students should be shown this film! It's also great for children. Whether the story surrounding the animations is any good I can't remember, but that's almost irrelevant! I have been searching for a copy of this film on video or DVD ever since these media became possible.But it just doesn't seem to be available. I can't understand why the film it is not shown on TV whenever there is a Picasso festival or exhibition.Can anyone tell me how I can get a copy of it?

A small, poetic brush stroke of a film depicting one man's potion for Picasso and his desperate search to find his own focus

[lex4285 · 7 May 2006]

I remember seeing this film on TV and delighting in its simplicity and the movement that both the cinematographer and musical score contributed. It was a very poetic experience that had little to do with the content or specifics of the story. It was, however, a story of one man's passion for Picasso and his unfulfilled obsession. I have tried to find it on VHS or DVD to no avail. Albert Finney was a young, discontented man - married to a beautiful woman whose devotion was quite extraordinary. Together, they searched Paris, miss Picasso at every turn. The ironic twist that closed the curtain on this small film took place on a beach. Just as the lead character finally gives up his search, the camera pans to a man drawing in the sand with a stick. As the camera tilts, we find Picasso himself creating the most temporary form that art can take...drawings that will soon be washed away by the sea.

A strange, Hippie era existential film

[diane-34 · 9/10 · 8 February 2012]

Diane and I just, moments ago, finished watching this quirky but very pleasant sleeper of a film. I know that '69 in San Francisco, where the film begins, is only two years after the famous "Summer of Love" so being in the City at that time, I kept thinking that the quite extraordinary Picasso morphed images were very similar to the media that was so common at that time in that place.

Of course the images in these three film sequences were totally Picassoesque and as one commentator has already written, those sequences should be shown in art classes because they are remarkable. The film is hard to type because it is, again by a previous commentator, nonlinear; it is episodic and the two at the very end where Finney goes to Spain and is shown how to fight a bull is real, a dead bull with blood, and the Spaniard who teaches Finney how to fight the bull delivers a marvelous soliloquy about how fighting a bull is a metaphor, my interpretation, on our death. His companion, Mimieux, remains in France and has a strange encounter with a blind painter who tells her about the existentialism, again my interpretation, of not finishing a painting.

All in all, The Picasso Summer is quite an amazing film and should be watched by film-lovers of any age.

worth watching just for the animated sequence

[jenyax · 9/10 · 27 January 2014]

I happened to see The Picasso Summer by chance the other day on television. I am so glad that I got to see it..........forget about the story, this film has the most brilliant, creative animated sequence of how one may interpret some of Picasso's art. The animated sequence is a fabulous work of art in its own right......well worth a look! And the final beach scene is a lovely twist. I do believe that it was the great artist himself...ever so fleeting a glimpse. I totally agree with the lady who said that every art student should watch the animated series, it gave me a better appreciation of the genius behind the artist. It has rekindled a piece of charcoal into a live ember for his work.

I am very, VERY disappointed by the ending!

[A_Dude_Named_Dude · 29 September 2014]

At the risk of simply doing another "me-too" review I'll try to mention some points about the movie without needlessly repeating what other have said. (There are currently eight others.) It seems to me that so far I'm the only one who has actually read the original story since I'm the only one upset by the movie's changed ending.

But before I tear into the wretched ending I'll talk about some other things first. Any filmmaker who tries to turn a Bradbury story into a film faces a doubly difficult task. It's never easy to turn (i.e. stretch) any short story into a feature length movie and it's even harder to put a Bradbury story on film, as anyone who has read him can easily attest.

The movie's story is based upon his short story "In a Season of Calm Weather", originally published in Playboy in 1957 and later anthologized in his book A Medicine For Melancholy. Several of his other works have been turned into movie projects with very uneven results: Fahrenheit 451 as done by François Truffaut (pretty good), The Illustrated Man (not bad), and last and certainly least, The Martian Chronicles (positively dreadful). This movie would have been much better if they hadn't ruined the ending.

In order to stretch the movie out the directors included several extended scenes of Picasso's paintings coming to life and an overly long bull fighting sequence. The animated sequences are quite good but I can't help but feel they last as long as they do to fill the empty space between the live action parts. Not only were they too long but the same sequences were used over and over again and seemed too repetitive. Ditto for the bull fighting part (included here to help explain Picasso's fascination with the subject). It may be a good idea to go make dinner during the bull fight, if only to miss its grisly conclusion when the poor bull dies in bloody agony after being gored by the bull fighter's sword.

The movie begins with the couple attending what would have been considered a hip (but ultimately vapid) San Francisco party, where George sees a woman with a tattoo of an eye on her neck (get it? Picasso?) and an artist is selling paintings of single alphabetical characters (I really liked his lower case "a"). The old band Sopwith Camel makes the briefest of appearances (if you blink you'll miss them), which is a shame, since they are one of the many bands from 60s that have been sadly forgotten. The party, along with his disillusionment with his pointless career, is what leads George and his wife to go on their extended journey to look for Picasso.

It should be remembered that this more of a 60s European film and less of a typical Hollywood flick. Movies like this move slowly and many Americans, particularly today's generation (who rate a movie by its explosions and body counts), will find it boooooring. This was one of the first big movies the great cinematographer Vilmos Zsigmond worked on after he had escaped from behind the Iron Curtain. You really can't see much distinctive work here although he did his best work on big budget movies like Close Encounters. The film score by Michel Legrand is fine but it seemed at times a bit too much, especially during the extended animated sequences. Again, this kind of thing is not unexpected, given the time this movie was made.

Now about the ending. I would have normally given this movie a high mark, like a 7 out of 10, because I like movies of this type. However, the ending absolutely ruined this movie for me and I am at a loss to explain how it came it about. As far as the movie goes, the ending is not inconsistent with the progress of the story, but it is essentially a 180° reverse of how Bradbury ended his story. The story's ending was meant to be bittersweet and somewhat ironic, as so many of his other stories are. Had I never read the original story, I would'nt've hated the ending I suppose, but as someone who discovered Bradbury at age twelve (an appropriate age, yes?**) I just can't accept it. I suspect it was that very reason that Bradbury did not use his real name as screenwriter and instead uses the pseudonym of Douglas Spaulding.** If you have seen the movie I suggest you read the story and see how it's supposed to end.

** If you don't understand that point read Dandelion Wine

Ruined by Animation and Violence

[drednm · 23 June 2020]

Good movie about a San Francisco couple (Albert Finny, Yvette Mimieux) who go to France to find Picasso. Beautiful location shooting and some humorous situations as the stars meet various locals and eccentrics in their search. Simple plot is accompanied by music by Michel Legrand.

On the down side are a long and violent sequence in which Finney seeks out a famous toreador who is friends with Picasso. There are also three long and tedious animation pieces that depict Picasso's art and themes of war, love, and the bullfight. These are done in a pulsating psychedelic style and seem interminable.

On the plus side are Finney and Mimieux. Familiar faces include Graham Stark as the postman, Georgina Cookson as the loud lady at dinner, Jim Connell as the artist at the party, and Peter Madden as the blind artist.

The final scene on the beach was filmed on Catalina Island and tacked on. The film was never released in US theaters but has been shown on television.