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Haunted Summer | |
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![]() Theatrical release poster | |
Directed by | Ivan Passer |
Written by | Lewis John Carlino |
Based on | Haunted Summer by Anne Edwards |
Produced by | Martin Poll |
Starring | |
Cinematography | Giuseppe Rotunno |
Edited by | Cesare D'Amico Rick Fields |
Music by | Christopher Young |
Distributed by | Cannon Films |
Release date |
|
Running time | 106 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $6 million |
Haunted Summer is a 1988 romantic period-drama film directed by Ivan Passer. The film is a fictionalized retelling of the Shelleys' visit to Lord Byron in Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva, which led to the writing of Frankenstein .
In 1816, authors Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, and Mary Shelley (née Godwin) get together for some philosophical discussions, but the situation soon deteriorates into mind games, drugs, and sex. It is the summer that Lord Byron and the Shelleys, together with Byron's doctor, John William Polidori, spent in the isolated Villa Diodati by Lake Geneva. There they held a contest to produce the best horror story, so as to kill the dullness of summer. The contest led to one of the world's most famous books being given life — Mary Shelley's Frankenstein .
In 1971, Daily Variety announced a film on the subject, based on a 12-page treatment by Anne Edwards, but it was not made: instead, Edwards turned her outline into a young adult novel, published in 1972. This in turn was optioned by MGM, to be directed by Martin Scorsese from a screenplay by Frederic Raphael, but the film had still not been made by the time the option lapsed in 1984. Producer Martin Poll bought the rights and hired Lewis John Carlino to adapt. In 1986, Variety reported that John Huston had agreed to direct and was insisting on the casting of largely unknown British actors (including Alice Krige, actually born in South Africa, as Mary), but Huston’s declining health subsequently forced him to drop out; Czech director Ivan Passer took on the project. Unlike Huston, Passer preferred American actors, and recast the roles of Percy and Claire with Eric Stoltz and Laura Dern. Hollywood Reporter announced that Rupert Everett was to play Byron, but Philip Anglim replaced him shortly before filming started. [1]
Principal photography began in May 1987 and ran until July. Passer was so keen to cast Stoltz as Percy that he delayed production by seven months. Location shooting took place in Switzerland and Italy, with Lake Como doubling as Lake Geneva, on whose shores the movie’s main events happened; finally, sound-stage filming (including a rainstorm scene shot in a water tank) took place in Malta. Hollywood Reporter gave the film’s final cost as $6 million. [1]
The film opened in Los Angeles on 16 December 1988. [1] By the time of its release, Ken Russell's Gothic , about the same events, had already appeared, but Michael Wilmington, reviewing for The Los Angeles Times , compared Passer's more restrained film favourably:
Carlino has given us exactly what Russell’s scenarist, Stephen Volk didn’t: a sense of Shelley and Byron as poets, of Mary and Polidori as novelists, a real delight in the kind of language they used and their own relish in using it. [2]
He approved of the deliberate, "anachronistic" casting of Americans and suggested parallels between the film's historical moment and the late 1960s "summer of free love". [2]
By contrast, Haunted Summer was not released in New York until the summer of 1989, when it played briefly as half of a double bill with the same director's Cutter's Way . [1] Caryn James wrote in The New York Times ,
it cannot have been easy to turn material so rich with imagination and drama into such a tepid, excruciatingly slow film. Mr. Passer seems to have no defense against Lewis John Carlino's inept screenplay... the characters soon appear as shallow libertines, posturing ninnies who spout the most effete period dialogue. [3]
Like Wilmington, she contrasted the film with Gothic, but preferred Russell's film, concluding by calling Haunted Summer "supremely disappointing". [3]
By the time of its New York premiere, the film had gone on release in Britain. Derek Malcolm in The Guardian , like James, compared it invidiously with Gothic: "hardly an ounce of humour or visual flair, despite the fact that Giuseppe Rotunno shot it". [4] The Sunday Telegraph was equally dismissive ("For unintended humour, try Ivan Passer's Haunted Summer"), calling it "Ken Russell's Gothic minus the monsters". [5] David Robinson in The Times struck a similar note ("the emotional entanglements are not much more enthralling than flirtations and quarrels on a Saga Holidays tour"), but at least praised the film's look and the performances, particularly Laura Dern's. [6]
Other films about this meeting of authors include the following:
John William Polidori was a British writer and physician. He is known for his associations with the Romantic movement and credited by some as the creator of the vampire genre of fantasy fiction. His most successful work was the short story "The Vampyre" (1819), the first published modern vampire story. Although the story was at first erroneously credited to Lord Byron, both Byron and Polidori affirmed that the author was Polidori.
This article contains information about the literary events and publications of 1816.
Clara Mary Jane Clairmont, or Claire Clairmont as she was commonly known, was the stepsister of the writer Mary Shelley and the mother of Lord Byron's daughter Allegra. She is thought to be the subject of a poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley.
Gothic is a 1986 British psychological horror film directed by Ken Russell, starring Gabriel Byrne as Lord Byron, Julian Sands as Percy Bysshe Shelley, Natasha Richardson as Mary Shelley, Myriam Cyr as Claire Clairmont and Timothy Spall as Dr. John William Polidori. It features a soundtrack by Thomas Dolby, and marks Richardson's and Cyr's film debut.
"The Vampyre" is a short work of prose fiction written in 1819 by John William Polidori, taken from the story told by Lord Byron as part of a contest among Polidori, Mary Shelley, Lord Byron, and Percy Shelley. The same contest produced the novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. "The Vampyre" is often viewed as the progenitor of the romantic vampire genre of fantasy fiction. The work is described by Christopher Frayling as "the first story successfully to fuse the disparate elements of vampirism into a coherent literary genre."
Fantasmagoriana is a French anthology of German ghost stories, translated anonymously by Jean-Baptiste Benoît Eyriès and published in 1812. Most of the stories are from the first two volumes of Johann August Apel and Friedrich Laun's Gespensterbuch (1810–1811), with other stories by Johann Karl August Musäus and Heinrich Clauren.
Johann August Apel was a German writer and jurist. Apel was born and died in Leipzig.
The Villa Diodati is a mansion in the village of Cologny near Lake Geneva in Switzerland, notable because Lord Byron rented it and stayed there with Dr. John Polidori in the summer of 1816. Mary Shelley, Percy Bysshe Shelley, and Mary’s stepsister Claire Clairmont, who had rented a house nearby, were frequent visitors. Because of poor weather, in June 1816 the group famously spent three days together inside the house creating stories to tell each other, two of which were developed into landmark works of the Gothic horror genre: Frankenstein by Mary Shelley and The Vampyre, the first modern vampire story, by Polidori.
Mazeppa is a narrative poem written by the English Romantic poet Lord Byron in 1819. It is based on a popular legend about the early life of Ivan Mazepa (1639–1709), who later became Hetman of Ukraine. Byron's poem was immediately translated into French, where it inspired a series of works in various art forms. The cultural legacy of Mazeppa was revitalised with the independence of Ukraine in 1991.
Nationality words link to articles with information on the nation's poetry or literature.
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. Frankenstein tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment. Shelley started writing the story when she was 18, and the first edition was published anonymously in London on 1 January 1818, when she was 20. Her name first appeared in the second edition, which was published in Paris in 1821.
History of a Six Weeks' Tour through a part of France, Switzerland, Germany, and Holland; with Letters Descriptive of a Sail Round the Lake of Geneva and of the Glaciers of Chamouni is a travel narrative by the English Romantic authors Mary Shelley and Percy Bysshe Shelley. Published anonymously in 1817, it describes two trips taken by Mary, Percy, and Mary's stepsister, Claire Clairmont: one across Europe in 1814, and one to Lake Geneva in 1816. Divided into three sections, the text consists of a journal, four letters, and Percy Shelley's poem "Mont Blanc". Apart from the poem, preface, and two letters, the text was primarily written and organised by Mary Shelley. In 1840 she revised the journal and the letters, republishing them in a collection of Percy Shelley's writings.
"Fragment of Novel" is an unfinished 1819 vampire horror story written by Lord Byron. The story, also known as "A Fragment" and "The Burial: A Fragment", was one of the first in English to feature a vampire theme. The main character was Augustus Darvell. John William Polidori based his novella The Vampyre (1819), originally attributed in print to Lord Byron, on the Byron fragment. The vampire in the Polidori story, Lord Ruthven, was modelled on Byron himself. The story was the result of the meeting that Byron had in the summer of 1816 with Percy Bysshe Shelley where a "ghost writing" contest was proposed. This contest was also what led to the creation of Frankenstein according to Percy Bysshe Shelley's 1818 Preface to the novel. The story is important in the development and evolution of the vampire story in English literature as one of the first to feature the modern vampire as able to function in society in disguise. The short story first appeared under the title "A Fragment" in the 1819 collection Mazeppa: A Poem, published by John Murray in London.
Bloody Poetry is a 1984 play by Howard Brenton centring on the lives of Percy Shelley and his circle.
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley was an English novelist who is best known for writing the Gothic novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley. Her father was the political philosopher William Godwin and her mother was the philosopher and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft.
Rowing with the Wind a.k.a. Remando al viento is a 1988 Spanish film written and directed by Gonzalo Suárez. The film won seven Goya Awards. It concerns the English writer Mary Shelley and her circle.
English writer Lord Byron has been mentioned in numerous media. A few examples of his appearances in literature, film, music, television and theatre are listed below.
Mary Shelley is a 2017 romantic period-drama film directed by Haifaa al-Mansour and written by Emma Jensen. The plot follows Mary Shelley's first love and her romantic relationship with the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley, which inspired her to write her 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus. An international co-production, the film stars Elle Fanning as Shelley, with Maisie Williams, Douglas Booth, Bel Powley, and Ben Hardy in supporting roles.
"The Haunting of Villa Diodati" is the eighth episode of the twelfth series of the British science fiction television programme Doctor Who, first broadcast on BBC One on 16 February 2020. It was written by Maxine Alderton, and directed by Emma Sullivan. The episode stars Jodie Whittaker as the Thirteenth Doctor, alongside Bradley Walsh, Tosin Cole and Mandip Gill as her companions, Graham O'Brien, Ryan Sinclair and Yasmin Khan, respectively. The episode is about the historical origins of the 1818 novel Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Shelley, portrayed by Lili Miller, and takes place at the Villa Diodati in 1816 where she was inspired to write the work. The episode also featured the return of the Cybermen in their first television appearance since the tenth series finale "The Doctor Falls" (2017). The episode was watched by 5.07 million viewers, and received positive reviews from critics.
Mer de Glace: opera in two acts with prologue was a 1986–1991 work by Australian composer Richard Meale, with a libretto by David Malouf. It is an adaptation of, and commentary on, Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein. It presents a tableaux-like juxtaposition of some ideas of the novel Frankenstein alongside the real dealings of Mary Shelley with Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.