Summer and Smoke ennessee Williams was already a legend nation as Best Director), Hotel Paradiso , and (played by the great Laurindo Almeida), all of it when Summer and Smoke premiered on The Comedians , starring Richard Burton, Eliz - evoking a different time, place, and world – a TBroadway on October 6, 1948, thanks to abeth Taylor, and Alec Guiness. He only made world belonging to one of the great poets of the huge success of his play The Glass seven films (he was supposed to direct the American drama – Tennessee Williams. And a Menagerie and, more importantly, A Streetcar screen version of Man of la Mancha but left due world perfectly captured by Elmer Bernstein’s Named Desire , which had opened the year be - to creative differences), but all seven are really timeless music. fore Summer and Smoke and become a sen - excellent. His work on Summer and Smoke is sation with critics and audiences and wonderful, both in getting great performances Summer and Smoke was originally released on catapulted Williams into the playwriting firma - from his actors, and in his beautifully shot an RCA Victor soundtrack LP. That LP con - ment. Summer and Smoke failed to ignite the widescreen images. tained approximately thirty-six minutes of same kind of heat as Streetcar and closed after music, including some heavily edited versions only 102 performances at the Music Box The - The film received some excellent reviews and of cues. For this first-ever release of the com - atre. However, the play was revived a mere four Page’s brilliant performance was universally plete score, we had access to two rolls of 1/2'' years later, this time off-Broadway at the then- praised – she was nominated for an Oscar in three-track masters that were sent by Para - new Circle In The Square Theater, directed by the Best Actress category. Una Merkel received mount to RCA Victor. The masters were used Jose Quintero and starring Geraldine Page. a Best Supporting Actress nomination for her to assemble the LP, but happily contained all of That production was a big success for Page performance as Page’s dotty mother, and the the cues that were not used on the album. In and Quintero and the play. Nine years later, film also picked up nominations for Best Art Di - those days, to assemble the LP they simply ed - Summer and Smoke was brought to the screen rection – Best Set Decoration (Hal Pereira, Wal - ited the three-track masters – thankfully, all the by Paramount Pictures, with Geraldine Page ter H. Tyler, Sam Comer, and Arthur Krams) and edited out bits were kept and put at the end of recreating her stage success as the spinster another for Elmer Bernstein’s incredible score. the reels. It was simply a matter of putting them Alma Winemiller. Peter Glenville directed the all back where they belonged to make the cues film from a screenplay by James Poe and Elmer Bernstein had begun scoring films in the once again complete. For reference, we also Meade Roberts. Starring opposite Page was early 1950s and by the time of Summer and had the complete scoring sessions archived on Laurence Harvey, along with a wonderful sup - Smoke had already written an amazing num - 35mm protection mag in the Paramount vaults. porting cast that included Rita Moreno, Una ber of great scores, including The Ten Com - The LP program was released on CD by RCA Merkel, John McIntire, Thomas Gomez, mandments , The Man With the Golden Arm, Spain, taken from a sub-master, so this is not Pamela Tiffin, and Earl Holliman. Sweet Smell of Success, Some Came Run - only the first release of the complete Summer ning, The Rat Race, The Magnificent Seven , to and Smoke , it is the first time it is being re - Briefly, Summer and Smoke , set in Glorious name just a few from that era. In 1961 alone, he leased from those original, superb-sounding Hill, Mississippi in 1916, is the story of Alma scored The Comancheros, TheYoung Doctors, By three-track tapes. Winemiller, a lonely, unmarried minister’s Love Possessed , and Summer and Smoke . daughter who leads a dull existence giving We have put the score in film order, which is voice lessons and leading bible studies, and her Summer and Smoke is one of Bernstein’s how it plays best. Because all the Glorious Hill almost sexual awakening with a handsome doc - greatest scores in a career that is jam-packed band music is used in short versions throughout tor – a free-wheeling, reckless playboy who with great scores like To Kill a Mockingbird, one sequence in the film, we decided to include grew up next door and was Alma’s first crush Birdman of Alcatraz, Walk on the Wild Side, The those other tracks in the bonus section, as it did and who’s recently returned to town. As always Great Escape, Love With the Proper Stranger, not make for a good listening experience to with Williams, there are buried passions, unre - Airplane!, Ghostbusters , and so many others have them all lumped together in a row. Addi - quited love, longing and loneliness, and, of that one could fill an entire booklet just naming tionally, we have included a source cue and the course, nothing quite turns out the way the them. Bernstein captures every emotion, every original LP edited cues in the bonus section. characters would like. subtext, every character – the loneliness, the longing, the yearning, the repression – it’s a It’s hard to imagine what a fresh, invigorating, Peter Glenville was a very underrated film di - textbook example of great film scoring. His main unique, and exciting voice Elmer Bernstein was rector who split his time between films and theme is one of his most haunting and beauti - back then – there was no one like him then, and stage. He directed his first Broadway show in ful – a swirling, sinuous, delirious melody that there is no one like him now. 1949, Terence Rattigan’s The Browning Version. recurs throughout the score. Right from the get- He also directed Rattigan’s Separate Tables go, Bernstein establishes the mood of the story — Bruce Kimmel and The Prisoner , which also became his debut and its characters in the film’s “Prologue,” which as a film director. Other films include Me and leads directly into the “Prelude,” the film’s main the Colonel , starring Danny Kaye, Term of Trial , title music. There are wonderful variations on starring Laurence Olivier, Becket (which he’d di - that main theme, along with secondary themes rected for the stage, as well – for his work on that are equally gorgeous. There’s also some the film he received an Academy Award nomi - Glorious Hill band music, some guitar music.