Summer Storm

Summer Storm is a 1944 period romantic melodrama directed by Douglas Sirk, and starring Linda Darnell, George Sanders, Edward Everett Horton, and Anna Lee. It was based on Anton Chekhov's 1884 novel The Shooting Party, with the screenplay written by Rowland Leigh. Karl Hajos was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. Plot summary 1919 – Kharkov, Ukrainian People's Republic. Just after the Russian Revolution, Count Volsky, an impoverished former aristocrat, visits Nadena Kalenin, head of a publishing company. Volsky offers her a manuscript, written by his friend and Nadena's former fiancé, Judge Fedor “Fedya” Petroff. As Nadena reads, a flashback begins: 1912 – The small (fictional) resort town of Tyrneva, outside Kharkov. Fedya is the examining magistrate, engaged to Nadena, whose wealthy family summers there. One day, during a summer storm, Fedya and his best friend Volsky take shelter in a gazebo on Volsky’s estate. Asleep inside, they discover Olga, the daughter of Kuzma, Volsky’s woodcutter. Her beauty bewitches Fedya. Olga agrees to marry Urbenin, Volsky’s middle-aged bookkeeper. She does not love him, but wants an escape from poverty. Olga and Fedya’s secret attraction continues to draw them throughout the wedding ceremony, until she runs off. Fedya chases her and Nadena discovers them kissing, dropping the dance card Fedya wrote “I Love You” on, which Fedya finds.