By the time she made Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams, the formidable Joanne Woodward had been playing troubled women onscreen for years, so she was way past the point of trying to engender audience sympathy; quite to the contrary, her performances in ’70s pictures like this one are truly fearless. Put even more bluntly, Woodward had no reservations about playing complete bitches, probably because she trusted her ability to reveal the hurt beneath the anger. And that’s just what she does in Summer Wishes, to the point that her performance has a subtlety the rest of the movie can’t quite match. So, while the film as a whole is good but not great, no such hedging is required when praising Woodward’s work. She’s abrasive, exhausting, rude, vicious, and vulnerable, portraying the whole spectrum of one woman’s complex emotional life.
Rita Walden (Joanne Woodward) is the wife of a successful optometrist, Harry (Martin Balsam). They live in upper-middle-class luxury in New York City. Rita whiles away her time shopping with her stuck-up mother (Sylvia Sidney), fretting about a past love she can’t forget, and trying to understand why she’s at loggerheads with her adult daughter and completely estranged from her adult son. In the course of the story, a family tragedy and a resulting breakdown force Rita to question her life choices, even as the long-suffering Harry takes her on a romantic getaway to Europe. Profoundly lost, Rita lashes out at anyone and everyone, yet still expects her loved ones to come when she calls; she’s incapable of realizing that her psychological prison is of her own making. And once Rita and her husband reach France, we realize Harry his is own demons, because traumatic memories of his World War II combat experiences come flooding back.
Directed by journeyman Gilbert Cates as the follow-up to his similarly bleak award-winner I Never Sang for My Father (1970), and written by Stewart Stern (an Oscar nominee for the 1968 Woodward vehicle Rachel, Rachel), this is a posh but understated production from top to bottom. The interior scenes, evocatively lit by cameraman Gerald Hischfeld, are bathed in deep shadows that reflect the emotional states of the characters, and the exterior scenes, particularly those in the former battlefields of the European theater, are suitably overcast.
Balsam, though primarily focused on mirroring Woodward’s acting, has some sweetly affecting moments as a man struggling to understand his enigma of a wife, and Sidney is fierce in her brief appearance. The picture isn’t perfect by a long shot, and the subplot of Rita being traumatized by her son’s homosexuality is treated clumsily; dream sequences in which Rita’s son is romanced by a male ballet dancer are at best dated and at worst borderline offensive. That said, Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams attacks a worthy theme with focus and purpose, making it easy to overlook a few narrative hiccups. (Available through Columbia Screen Classics via WarnerArchive.com)
Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams: FUNKY
Having worked on "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams" 50 years ago as the Unit Publicist (that's the person who is in charge of a movie's publicity while it is being filmed), I especially enjoyed reading your thoughtful, eloquently written critique. This was only my third job in this field, and remains my absolute favorite. During the 3-month shoot, I actually became friends with several members of the cast and crew, the nicest, most harmonious group of people I had ever worked with. I had always been a fan of Joanne Woodward, who went out of her way to be kind to me and we kept in touch for several years after the movie wrapped. She was completely down-to-earth, warm-hearted, had a terrific sense of humor, and was far more beautiful than she was ever allowed to be in most of her movies. Stewart Stern was a lovely man, a brilliant writer, and we also remained friends. The director, Gil Cates, gave everyone a beautiful sterling-silver Tiffanys key chain at the wrap party and when he screened the movie for us after he had finished editing it, I honestly thought it would be acclaimed as one of 1973's finest, award-winning films. The running time of Cates' cut was 112 minutes which, to me, seemed perfect. Unfortunately, as was a custom in those bygone days, the studio had a "sneak preview" of the movie at a theater in New Jersey that was showing a raucous slapstick comedy so the audience was in no mood to watch a serious, emotional drama like SWWD and the cards they filled out were mostly unfavorable. But Columbia took this nonsense seriously and ordered the movie's creative team to cut the movie down to a more "palatable" 90 minutes. Reluctantly, the director and writer (Cates & Stern) went back to the editing room and when I saw the 92-minute release print, I was horrified. Far too many crucial scenes had either been deleted or shortened, and Sylvia Sidney's scenes were so drastically shortened that her screen time now amounted to little more than 5 minutes! Of course I was thrilled to receive my first screen credit, but somehow the fact that my name was misspelled seemed appropriate! Despite the studio's butchery, "Summer Wishes, Winter Dreams" still pleased most critics and won a few awards, but I still can't help think how much more enthusiastic its reception would have been had the far more nuanced 112-minute version been released. Scott MacDonough 1/28/2023
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