"Eat the ravioli."

      

I never entertained such advice, in the context in which it was given in this astute and almost excessively subtle motion picture. But then again, I was never given it, except by implication, easily ignored. Now, I see areas in which it is entirely serviceable, and query a habit for more sophisticated fare. 

But a guy needs a dynamite jacket, as I discovered one afternoon off Times Square, investing in the Levi Strauss classic. I make no comment on this jacket, which is good enough for Will Higginson. But nothing from Hermès in suède to Ruffo in calf to Alexander Julian in melton cloth has ever settled upon me with the spontaneous click that Brick spoke of to Big Daddy. I acquired these surrogates for presentability's sake, but it was the Levi jacket that set the mold. Sometimes, the ravioli is the ultimate in solace. Sometimes it acquaints us, indeed, with a native hunger never known. Summertime was not a seduction, it was an extraction. We dare the shell that feeds us.


      

     

David Lean, director

H.E. Bates and

  David Lean, screenplay

Summertime

Arthur Laurents, book

London Film Productions

United Artists, 1955©

Carol Reid-Gaillard

Will Higginson