http://worldcat.org/entity/work/id/64912225

Summer storm (Motion picture : 1944)

This is the American film that most resembles Sirk's German work, especially a film like Zu Neuen Ufern, with a density of occurrences (the equivalent of Chekhov's condensed narration) and a rich level of ironies forming the basis of the film's structure. Such a meeting of European culture and the Hollywood production style finds its critics among those who have little expectation that the former can survive such an encounter. Others find that it captures the spirit of Chekhov. The story of a peasant girl's passionate affair with a provincial judge which ends in tragedy is told in a flashback to 1912 from post-revolutionary times. Sirk was particularly interested in the contradictions in behaviour and ambiguities in the motivations of the characters, most notably those of the judge and the Count. Sirk keeps his distance but is not without compassion for the protagonists as their moments of liberty are overtaken by their inability to realise their dreams.

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