Summer's Lease

Starring: John Gielgud

A family vacation in Tuscany leads to intrigue and mystery in a Masterpiece Theatre presentation written by John Mortimer (Rumpole of the Bailey) and starring Sir John Gielgud in an Emmy... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: DVD
• Language: English
• UPC: 054961774593
• Release Date: March 2002
• Rating: Unrated (Not Rated)
• Publisher: Acorn Media Publishing
• Director: Martyn Friend
• Starring: John Gielgud
• Runtime: 3 hours, 40 minutes
• Number of Disks: 1
• Other Video Info: closed-captioned
• Weight: 0.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

I’m not sure what to think.

Molly Praetor (Susan Fleetwood), the mother of three girls, has located an Italian Villa (Tuscany) to lease for the summer. This is to the consternation of her husband, Hugh (Michael Pennington). Her father, Haverford Downs (John Gielgud), catches Hugh in a compromising position and forces his way into their summer vacation in exchange for being discreet. Molly liked to read Sherlock Holmes as a child and immediately saw mystery and intrigue. She must solve problems such as missing water and a missing landlord. Everyone looks creepy, including Molly’s family. Old friends turn up. New friends are made. They all seem creepy, too. I suggest that this is one program that you don’t want to be spending your time anticipating what the problem is, or you will miss what the problem is. I spent too much time trying to figure out why they all felt like puppets being manipulated, and tried to figure out who the bad guys were at the expense of not realizing that everything was straightforward in this miniseries of only four episodes. John Gielgud received an Emmy award for being the lecherous old fart. You may well suspect that he plays a part in the mysteries. The character of Molly can be irksome at times as she goes where no woman would go and asks questions that no one would ask; worst of all, she puts herself in positions where she should’ve been dispatched long ago. The music is much louder than the background dialogue and does not match the theme of the story. I have to confess that I had not read the book at the time of this review. I am told that the book does a better job of wrapping up loose ends. The beautiful countryside is almost worth the series just to see it.