Summertree (1971)
Among the oddball, obscure 60's and 70's movies that BQ has unearthed, this one's as oddball and obscure as they come.......
Fascinating backstory, though. A young Michael Douglas, at the beginning of his acting career, got canned by the director of Ron Cowen's new play dealing with a red hot topic - young American men facing the draft and a high potential of death as cannon fodder for the Vietnam war meat grinder. Unless, of course, they could stay safe with a college deferment.
To be blunt, the director didn't think Douglas had the acting chops to play Jerry, a rebellious music student who, through his own hubris and self-absorption loses his deferment and faces either Vietnam or fleeing to Canada. (Close to 50,000 young men did exactly that to avoid a horrible, pointless death in Southeast Asia....)
(Let's stop for a second here....Seriously? This theater director didn't think Michael Douglas (of "Wall Street" and "Basic Instinct") couldn't pull his weight? Say what now?)
Unthwarted, Douglas had his father Kirk Douglas buy the film rights to the play and gift his son with 'Summertree' as a movie project.....and the chance for Michael to take another shot at the role and prove he had more than enough gravitas to play this conflicted (and somewhat spoiled, borderline obnoxious) character. Which he proceeded to do....
To increase the oddness factor, directing this distinctly American drama fell to, of all people, British actor, writer, composer and showbiz jack-of-all-trades Anthony Newley. Why? We've no idea. But to be fair, there's nothing much wrong with the way Newley handles the material and the cast; he moves the thing along efficiently enough. But the script taken from the play remains stubbornly unfocused and wanders about with no urgency or defined point of view.
And Douglas's character is.....well, kind of a spoiled jerk and tough to work up any real empathy for. Jerry confounds and worries his parents (Jack Warden, Barbara Bel Geddes) when he considers dropping out of college and 'find himself' as a guitar playing songwriter.
While he figures out his goals as the draft and Vietnam loom, Jerry tries Big Brother mentoring a black child and then falls into a romance with Vanetta (Brenda Vacarro) a nurse older than Jerry and clearly more worldly wise. Both these subplots eat up a good portion of the film's running time and and the script never does more than dance around the ongoing strife facing young men in the America without any deep insight or detail.
Jerry's feckless ways finally put him in the draft crosshairs, leading to an abrupt climactic moment in his decision making that doesn't make a huge amount of sense, but at least works up some dramatic heat missing from the rest of the film.
'Summertree's' final shot struck us first as a lazy crude attempt to finally attach a point of view to the film. But looking back, it does epitomize the essence of serious 1970's cinema.....bleak, nihilistic, and hopeless..... (before the feel-good blockbusters of Spielberg and Lucas came to soothe us and make happy endings essential in the film industry....)
Regarding Michael Douglas......as far we can tell, he did just fine in the role and you can spot the moments of controlled intensity that he'd bring to his later, more celebrated performances. We've never seen nor read Ron Cowen's original play which was nominated for a Pulitzer prize.....we can only judge the script adaptation by Edward Hume and Stephen Yafa, which was far, far far from Pulitzer-worthy.
At the time of its release, critics and audiences pretty much reacted to the film the same way we did and 'Summertree' sank like a stone into instant obscurity.....
Fans of Douglas and Vaccaro (also excellent) and those who remember those turbulent early 70's days might want to take a look.....but don't expect much. Right now, it streams free on Roku.
2 stars (**).
