Smiles of A Summer Night

Directed by Ingmar Bergman

Sweden • 1955 • 103 mins. • In Swedish

Showtimes & Past Screenings

The inspiration for Woody Allen’s A Midsummer Night’s Sex Comedy and Steven Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, Bergman’s Smiles is an erotic, nostalgic jab at upper-class sexual repression and marital dysfunction. At a turn-of-the-century country estate, eight men and women—invited for a summer weekend—embark on frenzied rounds of sexual intrigue and deception as they variously pair off, break up, and exchange partners. Inspired by Mozart, Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Renoir’s Rules of the Game, Bergman’s light-hearted but sophisticated boudoir farce, featuring such Swedish screen legends as Gunnar Björnstrand and Harriet Andersson, remains one of cinema’s great erotic comedies. In Swedish with English subtitles.