10:30 P.M. Summer (1966)

Vacationing in Spain with her daughter, her husband and her best friend (who also happens to be her husband's mistress), a middle aged woman becomes obsessed with a young murderer evading police capture in this bizarre but endlessly fascinating drama, written and directed by Jules Dassin from a Marguerite Duras novel. The best element that the film has in its favour is atmosphere. With rolling blackouts, violently stormy weather, eerie ancient-looking locations and a mysterious figure roaming from rooftop to the rooftop, there is a constant apocalyptic air to the tale and Romy Schneider's mistress character even comments at one point "it's the end of the world". The rooftop figure is the murderer - a scared, lonely soul that the jilted protagonist, played by Melina Mercouri, finds solace in. Fully aware of her husband's secret affair, she is able to sympathise with the murderer's motives as he reportedly shot dead his wife after finding her naked in the clutches of another man. In a refreshingly unexpected turn, the two cheated-on individuals do not fall passionately in love. In fact, on the contrary, he hardly utters a word and looks simply exhausted most of the time with an unspoken bond instead developing nicely between the pair. The film also benefits from lots of innovative camera-work with point-of-view shots cleverly used as Mercouri helps him get out of town, and some shots that gloriously sweep over her husband and daughter as they soundly sleep while she goes about her business. The movie ends on a bit of a baffling note and given its descent into obscurity over the years, '10:30 p.m. Summer' is clearly not a film for all tastes, but for those who like their movies daringly different, there is a lot to like here.

There was only one reason why I watched "10:30 PM Summer"--because it was directed by Jules Dassin. Dassin might just be among the most underrated directors of all time--with some amazing classics and hidden gems among his many films. Some of them are pretty famous (such as "Rafifi") but many others are just great films that somehow slipped through the cracks (such as "Thieves Highway" and "Brute Force"). Is "10:30 PM Summer" one of these hidden gems? It certainly is not considered a classic.I noticed on IMDb that the reviews for this film were all over the place and very inconsistent. One declared that the Melina Mercouri was 'the worst actress ever' while another thought she was 'magnificent' and one of the only good things about the film! And, scores ranged from 3 stars to 10! This film boasts a strange international cast with a Brit (Peter Finch), German (Romy Schneider) and Greek (Melina Mercouri) in the leads. The story is set Spain! It's a tale about a bizarre three-some--with a husband and wife and the husband's lover all on some sort of road trip. During the course of the trip, they wander into a town where a double murder just occurred--as a jealous husband shot his wife and her lover. This causes Mercouri's character to further lament her life and she spends most of the film drinking and talking and brooding. This is THE problem with the film. It is VERY talky and has very little in the way of plot. As a result, it felt very dull to me...very dull indeed. A rather lifeless and talky mess--a rare case where Dassin had a misfire.

Melina is Maria, a beautiful wife and mother who happens to be an alcoholic, as well as extremely neurotic. On a trip to Spain with her husband (Peter Finch) and their close friend (Romy Schneider), they end up in an overcrowded hotel whose city is dealing with rolling blackouts and a murderer on the run. After witnessing Finch and Schneider making out, an already drunk Maria finds the hiding killer, a young Spaniard who killed his wife in a fury after finding out she was the town tramp. She takes him out of town and promises to return, a promise of course that ends up in tragedy.There is so little plot, but Mercouri gives a sensitive and earthy portrayal, playing a woman whose problems only begin with the bottle. This could have been wrapped up in an hour long anthology TV show, but the film stretches out to just under 90 minutes, fortunate because any longer, it would become more grating than Mercouri's neurotic character, a woman I sympathized with, but only for so long. Finch and Schneider are secondary to the plot; It's more a character study for Maria. It gets a bit erotic in one sequence when Mercouri and Schneider shower together, but the promised eroticism between Mercouri and the Spanish killer (saying not a word) never comes out, which makes the lonely Maria's obsession with him seem pointless unless she's just on a suicide mission. As the film draws to a close, Finch wanders through the streets of Madrid calling out his wife's name ("Maria!"), I half expected him to break into the Leonard Bernstein/Stephen Sondheim song of the same name.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not unsympathetic against Mercouri, who, in private life, may be or may have been a most charming person. What I want to say is: If that lady isn't hamming it up and acting beyond all tops, then there is no such acting! I'm afraid that lady must have been a hysteric when not drunk in real life, which comes across pretty obvious here. Nice colours throughout the film. Nothing wrong with the framework, in other words. But what is it framing? Maybe just everything was so much more innocent before. Happier times come to life in which we were still learning and everything was still becoming better for the poor and for me this film is therefore worth so much more. Otherwise, it's a bore, if it weren't for the beautiful pictures.