Summer Lovers

Tuna's notes in white:

Summer Lovers (1982) stars Peter Gallagher as a young man, probably just out of college, summering on a Greek island with his steady girlfriend, Daryl Hannah. He is sort of a pre-yuppie, and has always done what was expected of him. Although he loves Hannah, he has a vague feeling that there might be more to life. Hannah is quiet, with a self-image problem, and is very modest, but she too wants more from their relationship. She is reading books about how to have a more exciting sex life, and hopes the vacation will kindle magic between them.

The first day there, Gallagher meets Valerie Quenessen, a French born archeologist, uninhibited, but afraid of commitment and relationships. She has come to Greece to "simplify her life." Gallagher follows her to the beach, where they end up having sex. After, he is surprised at himself, and confused about his feelings. He confesses to Hannah, who is jealous and threatened, and tells him to go get it out of his system. Hannah goes into town, and almost "gets even" with a local, but changes her mind. The fact that IMDB calls this Threesome will give you an idea how it ends up. On one level, it is a Hollywood formula love story -- couple meets girl, couple loses girl, couple finds girl, but all three characters seem very real, and react and grow in ways that have the ring of truth. That, and the fact that the film is full of nudity, explains why I like this film very much.

Scoop's notes in yellow:

The big question related to this film is this - whatever happened to Valerie Quennessen?

Her two young co-stars, Daryl Hannah and Peter Gallagher, went on to be mid-level stars. Valerie disappeared altogether. Without a trace. For years.

She made this movie (August 1982 release) and Conan the Barbarian (May 1982 release), did some French TV work about the same time, and then seemed to disappear from the face of the earth. As of 1997, nobody in the world seemed to have any information about her whereabouts in the previous 15 years. Then this story appeared in the newsgroup alt.obituaries in June of 1998:

...a while back I became acquainted with one of the cast members of the
charming 1979 flick FRENCH POSTCARDS who had told me one of his co-stars, the
French actress Valerie Quennessen (who later appeared in SUMMER LOVERS and
CONAN THE BARBARIAN) had been killed in a car crash close to ten years ago.
Later, I heard that the crash had taken place sometime in March of 1989, and
that she had two children who survived her.

All of the other sources I encountered were based on this same anonymous, unverified, a-guy-told-me-that-his-brother-told-him-and-it's-really-true report.

One more clue turned up. IMDb recently unearthed a 1989 credit for Quennessen

Based on the IMDb listing, I guess she must have been alive in 1988 or 1989, and she must have been attempting a mini-comeback for some reason or another. Nobody seems to know what she was doing between 1983 and 1989. The fact that she has no further credits after 1989 seems to offer no refutation of the theory that she is dead but, frankly, at this point it is nothing but a theory. She has no IMDb credits from 1984 to 1988, and she wasn't dead then, so the recent gap doesn't prove she is dead now. She likes to disappear. She went underground and disappeared for six years in the 1980's, so she obviously is intensely private, and she may have done it again. It is reasonable to argue that the best way to keep people from looking for her would have been to have someone declare her dead.

So ... who knows?

I believe we are still waiting for the real story to emerge. I won't tell you she is still alive, but neither will I be surprised if she is. I do know this. It would make a great project for an investigative reporter, and it would make a great movie. Why did she disappear for six years? Why did she make her brief 1989 comeback? What happened after that? Did she really die, or did that comeback convince her that she needed to get away from showbiz forever?

Here is the best bio of Quennessen I could find, but it basically stops in 1982, except for one sentence repeating the auto accident rumor.

NUDITY REPORT

Valerie Quenessen shows everything. Hannah shows breasts and buns, and countless unidentified women show various body parts including full frontal nudity, mostly in beach scenes.

DVD info from Amazon

Unfortunately, it is a bare bones DVD, and is presented in 4/3 aspect ratio, and it's a pan-n-scan version. The transfer is outstanding, however.

As for the movie. It was the only full-length film in Randall Kleiser's career which he wrote and directed. After this attractively photographed movie, he was still in demand as a director, but he was asked to leave his scripts home. Kleiser is no Marty Scorsese, but he can still get work as a workmanlike director-for-hire, mostly for TV and "B" movies. In 1998, for example, he directed Shadow of Doubt, the film where critics questioned the casting of Melanie Griffith as a brilliant defense attorney.

I think Summer Lovers effectively demonstrates his career strengths and weaknesses. As far as I can tell from the pan-n-scan DVD, he did a satisfactory job in the director's chair. In the writing capacity ... well, the story isn't so bad, but the characters are superficial and the man could not write dialogue at all.

Rip-Off Alert: featureless DVD which only has a pan-n-scan version.

The Critics Vote

no major reviews.

The People Vote ...

IMDB summary. IMDb voters score it 4.7/10

The meaning of the IMDb score: 7.5 usually indicates a level of excellence equivalent to about three and a half stars from the critics. 6.0 usually indicates lukewarm watchability, comparable to approximately two and a half stars from the critics. The fives are generally not worthwhile unless they are really your kind of material, equivalent to about a two star rating from the critics. Films rated below five are generally awful even if you like that kind of film - this score is roughly equivalent to one and a half stars from the critics or even less, depending on just how far below five the rating is.

My own guideline: A means the movie is so good it will appeal to you even if you hate the genre. B means the movie is not good enough to win you over if you hate the genre, but is good enough to do so if you have an open mind about this type of film. C means it will only appeal to genre addicts, and has no crossover appeal. (C+ means it has no crossover appeal, but will be considered excellent by genre fans, while C- indicates that it we found it to be a poor movie although genre addicts find it watchable). D means you'll hate it even if you like the genre. E means that you'll hate it even if you love the genre. F means that the film is not only unappealing across-the-board, but technically inept as well.

Any film rated C- or better is recommended for fans of that type of film. Any film rated B- or better is recommended for just about anyone. We don't score films below C- that often, because we like movies and we think that most of them have at least a solid niche audience. Now that you know that, you should have serious reservations about any movie below C-.

Based on this description, Tuna says, " C+. Yes, the themes are frankly sexual, and there is a lot of nudity, but it is a frank yet entertaining look at relationships, all set in a beautiful location. I suspect that people who watch this new DVD release will raise the score at IMDB. One of my favorite movies, but based on the score, clearly not everyone feels that way. Scoopy says, "C, I guess, maybe a C-, but certainly not lower that that. It is a film with great pluses and minuses. The greatest minus is the acting, which is sub-high school level, closely followed by the dialogue and characterization, which are genuinely uninteresting and superficial. The greatest plusses are: gorgeous and exotic Greek locales, and a monumental amount of nudity. I couldn't get into the characters or story at all, and you can consider the film an "E" if you see it on broadcast TV with the nudity removed. If you see it uncut, however, the beauty of the bodies and the scenery make it a solid watch. You can fast-forward through the insipid dialogue and make it a solid hour of hot cinema nudity."