Truly Dreadful Film

Highly Overrated But Still Good

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Saw this film in a last-run unspooling at a neighborhood Los Angeles theater and was stunned by the overpowering sensuality of its cinematics. More than four decades later, I can still recall the sun- and moon-drenched humidity of a Midi summer, and the flowering of an adolescent Susannah York in the precincts of a charismatic Kenneth More, at his charming best. That this film is no longer recognized in latterday compendia of film is something beyond my understanding, even in the resumes of both stars. Someone, surely, should resurrect same in the DVD mode, completely "remastered," and I, for one, would cheerfully plunk down my admission fee. This one, and maybe "Reds" as well.

I was only 10 when I saw this film but I'd been seeing films for around 3 years at least already so I really did understand what was going on, etc. For some reason, I OFTEN think of this movie and have been trying to remember the title for years to see if it's available for purchase. I can't wait to see how I like it now, 40 years later... for some reason that countryside is in my mind and I must see it again.

In the early 1960s there were several movies that put a teen-aged girl into a moral dilemma that was difficult even for people three times her age. But the performances of Jill Haworth in "Exodus," Hayley Mills in "The Chalk Garden" and Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker in "The World of Henry Orient" are overshadowed by that of Susannah York in "The Greengage Summer" (1961).York plays a responsible person who falls in love with a criminal -- a professional thief, played by Kenneth More, who finds her very attractive. She is sixteen, he is in his 40s. Without parents for the summe, she is in charge of her younger siblings; he is single and carefree. But there is no seduction here, from either party.Susannah York's Joss trembles and blushes as someone ready to throw pride and morality to the wind in the name of love. Kenneth More's Eliot, initially a copy of Charles Boyer's Pepe in "Algiers" (1940), becomes genuinely awkward as he tries to understand her exuberance, and as he rediscovers a pre-criminal sense of honor within himself. The relationship of these two unlikely lovers is erotic, but without the smutty sex we now expect from such cinematic situations, and without the sermonizing or soft-focus slow motion that became fashionable for awhile a few years after this movie and those with a similar theme.Realistic dialogue and lush background scenes are juxtaposed against embarrassing and unspoken emotions, making this film a haunting exposition.Kevin Cisneros

Susannah York is magnificent as the young girl who must protect and nurture her siblings while being attacked by unfamiliar situations and coming-of-age. Kenneth More is magnificent as the suave thief with whom she gets enthralled. And Danielle Darrieux is a study in magnificence as the past-her-prime working girl resigned to her fate. The photography is luscious. And the dialogue is utterly realistic with witty repartee giving way to raw feelings. This is one of my top 10 favorite movies of all time.