Five Days One Summer (1982) User Reviews

Worth watching

[SB100 · 6/10 · 16 June 2021]

In general this last film of the director Fred Zinnemann has not met with much approval, and it is not difficult to see why. The plot is extremely simple, whatever tension is established towards the end is soon dissipated; and the emotional tensions between the leads are not fully resolved. The scenery is nice; the climbing scenes interesting or scary according to one's inclinations; but overall it is not surprising that some people have ended a viewing by saying 'Is that it?'

I still find it worth watching again after many years in the reissued Warner archive version, and not only for Betsy Brantley's big blue eyes - for example, there is a chance for Sean Connery to show more emotional range than usual in his roles, and the period detail has a good authentic feel of the 1930s.

Emotional and romantic love story among a middle-aged doctor and a young woman in the gorgeous Swiss Alps

[ma-cortes · 6/10 · 18 March 2021]

This solidly crafted film is set in 1932 , the story of a haunting and obsessive love story between a married Scottish doctor : Sean Connery and a young woman : Betsy Brantley who happens to be his niece , while they stay on vacation in the Swiss Alps and subsequent loving intervention by a good-looking mountain guide : Lambert Wilson . As the older , married doctor has to compete with a handsome young man for getting his intimate lover .

An interesting but slow-moving and predictable movie in which and elderly doctor has to vie for her love with their handsome young mountain climbing guide , being based on a story by Kay Boyle. A melodrama about a love affair in which there is romantic dialogue , emotion , gestures and nuances by employing a lush setting that overwhelms . It boasts a good cast giving fine interpretation , such as the veteran Sean Connery, the newcomer Betsy Brantley and the French Lambert Wilson , son of the great actor Georges Wilson . They are well accompanied by an attractive support cast providing brief but cool acting, such as : Gerard Buhr , Jennifer Hilary, Isabel Dean and Anna Massey .

It contains superb location with exquisite cinematography by Giuseppe Rotunno, adding dimension to the story, including remarkable mountain climbing footage . As well as a sensitive and moving musical score by the classic composer Elmer Bernstein. This was last movie to come from the distinguished Austrian-born filmmaker Fred Zinnemann , but being slow-going and a little bit boring . The film is well directed , though inferior than others Zinnemann movies . As Fred directed good flicks , such as : High Noon, The Seventh Cross , Act of violence , The Men, From here to Eternity, Oklahoma ! , The Search , The Nun's story , The Sundowners , A Man for all seasons , The Day of Jackal , Julia , among others . Rating : 6/10 . Well worth watching . The picture will appeal to Sean Connery fans . Essential and indispensable seeing for Fred Zinnemann completists .

Deserves To Be Better Known

[slightlymad22 · 6/10 · 22 May 2017]

Five Days One Summer (1982)

Plot In A Paragraph: A middle aged Scottish doctor (Connery) and a younger woman (Betsy Brantley) go on a climbing holiday in the Swiss alps, when their Swiss tour guide takes a liking to the woman.

Director Fred Zinnemann's movie deserves to be much better known than it is. It is beautifully shot, has great locations and is well acted. I think I know why audiences stayed away like they did.

It seemed at first that the couple were father and daughter, then it seemed as if they were on their honeymoon (as the doctor was introducing the young woman as his wife) finally, it was revealed they wear in fact uncle and niece, and they were having an incestuous affair. Not your usual love story. And it plays like a big television drama, lots of unnecessary flashbacks and a very melodramatic ending, and there isn't really a lot of dialogue either!! Long periods of time go by without a line of dialogue being spoken.

Another Connery movie I paid a lot of money to buy on DVD, however this one is worth watching (unlike a few of the others I purchased without seeing) a perfectly fine lazy Sunday afternoon movie.

Budgeted at $15 million, Five Days One Summer grossed under $200,000 at the domestic box office. Zimmerman was so upset by the movies failure and the awful reviews, that he never directed another movie again.

funny taste of Switzerland

[Sarah-187 · 24 August 2003]

This movie is dated and overly dramatic, but it also has its charms. The best part about it is the accurate portrayal of Swiss culture (yeah it does kind of exist, mostly mountain climbing and rigid traditions, but the occasional alphorn and yodle). Really, it is frighteningly accurate. Beautiful mountain scenery and discovering how old-school climbing gear worked are two of the other benefits of this surprisingly sweet movie.

Psychological melodrama

[Billiam-4 · 6/10 · 3 August 2022]

Psychological melodrama goes a bit far combining the story of a complex and dubious love relationship with the thrills of dangerous mountaineering, but is mildly entertaining, if you can bear it.

five days one summer

[mossgrymk · 7/10 · 11 January 2023]

This final Fred Zinnemann film was pretty much trashed by the critics when it came out in 1983 which is puzzling, in my opinion. I mean, it's certainly not a great or even very good film but it's just as good or better than a lot of the stuff DePalma was churning out at the same time over which the same critics swooned. Of course, by 1983 Zinnemann was long out of favor with the auteurists who dominated film criticism, having been consigned to the realm of "impersonality" by their hero and mentor, Andrew Sarris who, as usual, confused moral earnestness and craftsmanship with anonymity, as if Zinnemann were no better than, say, Robert Z. Leonard. Or Delbert Mann.

So let me do my small part to mildly rehabilitate this sad tale of a love affair crumbling amid the Alps that could have been told by Hemingway, Irwin Shaw or James Salter. Problem is that scenarist Michael Austin is considerably less talented than those three scribes and makes the fatal mistake, I'm sure with Zinnemann's input, of having the affair be between uncle and niece, thus giving the proceedings an un-needed "yuck!" factor when the story could have worked just as easily or better as older man/younger woman.

If, however, you can overlook the above failing (a tall ask, judging by the IMDB responses below) there are many things that are appealing in this good director's swan song, including fine performances by the three leads, especially the too seldom seen Betsy Brantley who imbues her character with poignancy, intelligence and grace. I also liked the story within the story of the old woman who gazes upon the perfectly ice-preserved body of the handsome young man she was to marry forty years ago. A lot of film makers would have stuck this in awkwardly as a clunky, moralistic sub plot. Not Zinnemann. In his hands it is woven seamlessly into the movie's fabric and does not hit you over the head with "message" about true versus false love.

Then there is the lovely score by Elmer Bernstein, and the even lovelier cinematography of Giuseppe Rotunno.

Bottom line: Sarris was wrong about Huston and Wilder. I maintain he's almost as wrong about Zinnemann. Give it a B minus.

Glacial.

[daviesuk · 4/10 · 21 December 2006]

The good points - beautiful scenery, and some viewers might appreciate the insight into mountain climbing in the 1930's.

Bad points - the flashbacks are tedious, the ending obvious (to this viewer anyway)and - apart from Connery, who plays himself, as always - the acting uninvolving. And personally I don't care much about mountaineering in the 1930's, and this film didn't do anything to quicken my interest.

There are some surprises, but I feel the movie really lacks from characters whom one can care about: in particular Betsy Brantley, who plays Kate, seems desperately out of her depth here.

I found it to be pretentious and glacially slow. I'd rather have that ninety minutes of my life back.

An Elegant Gem

[dusted1 · 10/10 · 29 October 2000]

This is a very fine movie. Maltin really misses it with his review. Fine acting by all of the major players. As at least one other reviewer pointed out, this is a finely crafted, minimalist production as far as the character dialogue. Zinnemann did a superb job of direction. The alpine scenes are exquisitely beautiful. The mountain climbing is realistically of the period (1932) and I found it to be completely engrossing.

The film is a morality play about the nature and reality of boundaries. And what type of tragedy can happen when one ignores boundaries. Beautifully done film. If you like real stories about real people you should love this film. If you're a special effects type of guy you might want to ignore it. Still, the cinemaphotography and mountain climbing scenes are worth a look--even for the most jaded modernist.

Confusing, but nice mountain climbing sequences

[jeremy3 · 5/10 · 16 July 2007]

The main reason to see this movie is the scenery and mountain climbing sequences. The movie did indeed do a very good job of showing how treacherous and demanding mountain climbing is. I was also glad to hear that there were not stunt actors filling in. The actors had to do their own work. The photo quality is so good that you think that it could have been filmed yesterday, not 25 years ago. The main drawback to the movie is that it is very confusing. The movie starts out with an odd couple, an older man and a very young woman, showing up at a Swiss mountain resort. The movie goes backwards throughout the plot letting you know how their relation came about. Unfortunately, by doing so, the viewer is left with too many questions. Worse still, I didn't completely understand the story of their relationship. In the synopsis on the film cover jacket, it says that the woman was his niece. One good thing was the tension between Connery's character and the young Swiss mountain climber. When the tragic accident occurred, the love-triangle would have made it look like this was no accident, but homicide. It was never clear whether there was adultery or just flirtation going on. Connery never revealed completely how his relationship with the young woman developed. You were also not be completely sure how much the couple loved each other. That ambiguity did work well.

Zinnemann's swansong is beautiful!no,wonderful!!!

[dbdumonteil · 8/10 · 20 April 2003]

When the movie was released in the early eighties,it was difficult to realize that the man who made this gem is the same that ,many years ago ,had done "high noon" "act of violence " or "from here to eternity".It was also hard to accept Connery in such an intimate,sensitive part.Zinnemann,who was -unfairly - criticized by European critics for being "academic" "Hollywoodian" directs here a true European movie,far from the fashions,as far from Hollywood artifacts as it can be.The equivalent of John Huston's last movie "the dead" ,it's one of the most moving swansongs in the seventh art history.

SPOILERS Sean Connery portrays a middle-aged man ,who at first sight seems very nice ,but he 's got a wife who's much younger than him...Little by little,with flashbacks,we learn the truth:this young woman,Kate, is not his wife but his lover.But there's more.The center of gravity of the movie is the discovery of a body in the mountains.Ice has preserved the dead man's youth and the scene when his former love ,a woman who seems older than the mountains ,sees this fixed face is absolutely mind-boggling. One thinks of the sequences in Pompéi in Rosselini's "Viaggio in Italia"

This incident is not irrelevant:it reveals Connery character's harshness and selfishness when he says to the young guide (Lambert Wilson)that they're not in a hurry to bring back the body to the village.

This is a movie with few dialogues ,where looks are more important than words .The splendid cinematography enhances the mountains which will outlive everyone and make human feelings futile and fleeting.From here to eternity ,they will stand,but as the guide tries to say to the heroine,life is too precious to be spoilt

The ending is as stunning as Huston's "the dead" conclusion:Connery and Wilson set off to climb a dangerous mountain,one of them fall,but the camera only shows tiny figures in the landscape.Who's dead? Kate 's mad running across the snow ,the white snow, will haunt you long after you 've seen the movie.Elmer Bernstein's music is an also asset and you will appreciate it till the final credits.Wonderful.

bland incest

[SnoopyStyle · 4/10 · 12 December 2022]

It's Europe between the Wars. Douglas Meredith (Sir Sean Connery) is on a climbing adventure vacation in the Swiss Alps with Kate (Betsy Brantley). They present themselves as a married couple. In reality, she is his young niece. They own the two halves of the family ship building business. He wants to avoid any involvement while she works in the drafting office. The relationship gets more complicated when she falls for their local climbing guide Johann Biari (Lambert Wilson).

The celebrated film director Fred Zinnemann delivers a lifeless relationship drama. There is no chemistry in any of this. Worst, there is no creepiness in the portrayal. It has a blandness that the movie cannot overcome. The most compelling part of the movie may be the mountain landscape and some climbing. This melodrama is a slog. It tries to heat up, but I'm simply waiting for it to end.

Fred Zimmerman's final film is quite visually grand, but its anemic and trite story doesn't match its visuals

[IonicBreezeMachine · 4/10 · 2 July 2022]

Set in 1932, middle aged doctor Douglas Meredith (Sean Connery) and his young female traveling companion Kate Meredith (Betsy Brantley) whom he introduces as his wife arrive in the Swiss Alps for a mountain climbing trip. Over the course of their trip, the two are guided by local mountain guide Johann (Lambert Wilson) and overtime certain aspects of their relationship are revealed.

Director Fred Zimmerman, known for such classics as Day of the Jackal and High Noon made Five Days One Summer combining the Kay Boyle short story, Maiden, Maiden with an Austrian Alps folk tale about an old woman whose missing bridegroom was discovered in a glacier. The film was a passion project for Zimmerman as he had fond memories of the mountains in his native Austria and wanted to capture that grandeur on screen. With extensive location shooting, dust blown from the Sahara turning the mountains orange, storms destroying extensive set dressings, and even crewmembers discovering the frozen body of a man who had been missing for thirty-one years, preserved in the ice at a prospective location Five Days One Summer was a tumultuous production to say the least. Coming in at a final budget of around $17 million what scant sources I gathered indicate the film's final gross never cracked $200,000. Critical reception was equally harsh with many lambasting the film as trite melodrama that didn't emotionally resonate (it probably didn't help that a major aspect of Douglas and Kate's relationship was hidden in the marketing). It's unfortunate the movie went through so much hell during production because that makes the end product all the more tragic that it doesn't work.

I'll say that Five Days One Summer does look quite gorgeous as Zimmerman shows a clear love for the Alps with the shots of these imposing locales lovingly captured in a way in which the enormity is well-conveyed to the audience. The setting is also nicely recreated with a solid eye for period details. Elmer Bernstein's musical score is also very haunting and moody. The main crux of the movie however is in the love story aspect and unfortunately not only is it not a good love story as its rather passionless and muted with these characters often feeling lost amongst the vastness captured by Zimmerman, but there's a major element involving incest between an uncle and niece that was carefully hidden in the marketing materials that isn't treated with the gravity it should be and feels like it's used more for shock value than to make any character or thematic point because if you were to take away the incest element nothing about this story would change. The same can also be said of a sequence halfway through the film where Kate, Douglas, and Johann find a frozen corpse in the snow and like the incest it's completely incident and has an air of "so what?" because it's something that just happens without actually tying back to the main story.

Five Days One Summer is a mostly forgotten film in Zimmerman's filmography, and unfortunately time hasn't improved or recontextualized what critics and audiences rejected in 1982. While the actors do what they can with the material, Five Days One Summer is a slow, boring, and curiously flat love story that only occasionally sputters to life with things like the incest reveal, the frozen corpse, or the occasional mountaineering hazard. A disappointing not for Zimmerman to end his career on.

High five for a final bow

[tomsview · 9/10 · 22 December 2015]

I'm one of those who think this film is a neglected gem.

It has a number of twists but it is the interaction between the three leads that makes it so compelling. Without giving too much away, the story, which is set in 1932, is about a couple, Douglas Meredith (Sean Connery) and the much younger Kate Meredith (Betsy Brantley) who arrive at a Swiss chalet during the summer for some hiking and a little mountain climbing.

As the story unfolds we realise that although they introduce themselves as husband and wife, there is something difficult about the relationship. The whole thing comes to a head and decisions are forced when Kate attracts the attention of a young climbing guide played by Lambert Wilson.

This was Fred Zinneman's last film, but it has a different mood and pace than many of his films. It unfolds at not so much a leisured pace but a measured one, and there is plenty of tension throughout the story. It seems very much like a Merchant Ivory production. If you have seen films such as "Heat and Dust", "Howard's End" or "Remains of the Day", you'll know what I mean - although it was made a few years before any of those.

Apparently the film bombed when it was first released and the critics were less than impressed. Possibly that was partly because it was an unexpected entry from the man who had helmed films such as "From Here to Eternity", "High Noon" and "The Day of the Jackal", but I think they may also have been put off by the revelation about the Meredith's relationship.

Sean Connery plays a man with much on his mind with no small amount of guilt thrown in. He handles it with the same understatement that underpins the film. Surprisingly, Connery's natural power comes through more noticeably here than in many of his action roles.

With her rather unflattering 1930's fashions and bobbed hairstyle, Betsy Brantley at first seems unprepossessing as Kate but her openness and freshness soon makes believable the attention she receives from the males in the movie.

If you're tastes run to "Fast and Furious 4" then this probably isn't your movie, but if you are looking for a beautifully acted and photographed story with a touch of intrigue told in an unhurried manner, "Five Days in Summer" is worth seeking out.

Disappointing fare from a director and star capable of better.

[barnabyrudge · 4/10 · 30 June 2004]

It is ironic that director Fred Zinnemann once directed High Noon, arguably the most perfectly-paced film ever made. For with Five Days One Summer, 74 year old Zinnemann has made a film in which the pacing is so interminable that many viewers will surely lose patience and find themselves reaching for the "OFF" switch.

Middle-aged married doctor Douglas (Sean Connery) arrives in 1930s Switzerland with his niece/mistress for an alpine climbing holiday. Seems that Dr. Douglas has been having an affair with his niece Kate (Betsy Brantley) for some time, but the pair of them can never openly reveal their relationship as it would cast shame on the family. Douglas begins to realise that there is no future in the relationship, but he selfishly tries to cling onto his young lover regardless. Complications arise when handsome young mountain guide Johann (Lambert Wilson) appears on the scene, and Kate is immediately smitten....

Five Days One Summer is very nice to look at (full marks to cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno) and Sean Connery gives one of the most multi-layered performances of his career in a very complex role. But the film's good points end there. Betsy Brantley is completely underwhelming as Kate - perhaps intimidated by Connery's performance, or perhaps not quite up to the demands of so challenging a role. But it's the pace, as mentioned, that really kills the film. You'll look long and hard for a film as slow-moving and utterly dull as this one.

A realistic romance, subtle not slow.

[BenTrova · 8/10 · 11 September 1999]

Did you ever hear little girls dream out loud, "When I grow up I'm going to marry a man like...."? Well young Kate's ideal man is her older uncle Douglas, an accomplished physician and world traveller, a charming and humbly commanding figure filled out well by Sean Connery. But like returning to a large room in which she was small, Ms. Brantley's character can now see that her uncle is also aging, balding, lonely and lecherous when she succumbs to going away with him on a short holiday to the alps, pretending to be his wife. She is trying to make real her little girls' dream. It is appropriate and true that their romance doesn't quite work out.

The theme is lovers separated by time; as wonderfully illustrated by the metaphor of the bridegroom trapped for forty years, ageless in a glacier, while his bride waits for him. Only the spirit of the lovers can remain perfect and beyond time. This, like all actions in the story, the camera lets the viewer discover for him/herself. The alpine scenery is superb. No car chases.

Why did they even make this film??

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 15 December 2022]

"Five Days One Summer" is a film that bombed at the box office and after seeing it, I can understand why. Although the acting is good and the cinematography AMAZING, the story make you wonder who thought it would make a good film? And, more importantly, would would want to see it in the first place?

The story is very simple. A married man and his niece/lover arrive in the Swiss Alps for a vacation AND clandestine rendezvous. It seems Douglas (Sean Connery) really loves both mountain climbing AND incest. As for Kate, she just seems to be there and for much of the film you have no idea how she feels about Douglas or their shocking relationship. Then, at the end, someone dies.

Other than the amazing mountain cinematography, I can't really think of any reason to see this one. Despite sounding very salacious, it's really amazingly dull from start to finish. I can see why it's one of Connery's lesser-known movies.

Easy to see why this flopped at the box

[buonoart · 4/10 · 1 June 2023]

Stunning landscapes and perilous climbing can't save what is an otherwise dull and inexplicable "romance" between an aging, mountaineering doctor and his enthralled niece. Even for the 1980s, the idea of an infatuation that begins in a niece of 10 years' age and ripens into an extramarital affair with someone of the third degree of consanguinity is pretty creepy (not that it doesn't happen). But we never get any idea of just why Kate became obsessed with her dead father's brother, or why Douglas reciprocates so easily. Certainly these are more Edwardian mores than Victorian! Maybe by the 1930s, everyone was this jaded.

There's also a rather abrupt, intervening, at least facial attraction between the climbing guide and Kate, but I guess it was necessary to prolong the film or at least add intrigue to the plot (it scarcely moves the needle) and it is barely imaginable that such a servant would actually confront his master over it. I also never got the digression about the shipbuilding company, as whether Douglas chooses to take charge of it or not has zero bearing on the story. There's one further strange scene presaging the ending, which I won't mention for the sake of leaving out spoilers.

Despite this adaptation, I think maybe the short story it was adapted from might be worth a read. Certainly it motivated the producer and director to adapt it to the screen. Unlike the climbers, however, this film never scales any great height.

Swiss mountain atmospherics and deftly revealed character twists

[LyceeM16 · 10/10 · 22 September 2008]

This is one of my favorite "undiscovered" movies. The Swiss mountains are rendered so perfectly that you will feel cold watching the film. This movie is constructed so as to slowly reveal character and relationships (both between people and relationships within an isolated Swiss community). The way in which the director leads one from ones initial perceptions regarding the two main characters (she's so much younger, some sadness lies between them) to the revelation of the details of their relationship is artful. I also found Lambert Wilson's portrayal of a solid Swiss man of the mountains to be excellent and the scene of the elderly widow is very powerful. The filming of the (almost) final scenes (when a figure runs across the snow but the director wont tell us who is running across the snow for the longest time) is beautifully done. Based on the short story by Kay Boyle- namely Maiden, Maiden.

a cinemagraphic masterpiece!

[patjam · 10/10 · 11 May 1999]

A cinemagraphic masterpiece where all the relationships and tensions developed by the story (a tale of irrepressible love fulfilled, thwarted and betrayed) are conveyed in the exquisitely rendered images carrying the communications that you read as if they were a text; and with the verbal dialogue reduced to the barest minimum required.

Vintage 1930's mountaneering romance in swiss alps

[camel-9 · 9/10 · 13 October 1999]

What I loved of this motion picture is the attention to detail of 1930's mountaineering equipment, clothing, and practices. Now that there is interest in what happened on Everest in 1924 (Hillary & Mallory), maybe this great reel will be dusted off the shelves and shown again in theathers. There is even a reference to the British Himalayan expedition: Douglas, played by Sean Connery, says in the dialogue that he was a medical officer in that expedition.

The pivoting moment of the story? Definitely when they find the body of a man that had disappeared 50 years earlier the day before his wedding day, inside the ice of a glacier. His face did not age, and still looks twenty years old. The swiss villagers take the now 70-years old bride to see the man's corpse, and the contrast of her aged face with the much-yournger his, symbolizes the age difference in the love story between Douglas and Kate, an older man and a very young woman.

Not What You Think!!

[PerryW · 8/10 · 21 February 2018]

I'll have to disagree with most reviews that emphasize the niece/lover girl is so young, barely legal, much younger as so many say. The actress was 27 when the movie was made & she looks about that! And since age differences of 25 years+ are quite common outside USA, especially Europe, this is not considered 'shocking!'. Also it needs to be made clear if she is actually his brother or sister's daughter or a niece by marriage which, of course, is no blood relation at all! But I suppose even that would be shocking to Americans!