Serge Bourguignon, the
auteur
of the 1962 Academy Award winner
Sundays and Cybele
, doesn't quite come up to the standard set by that earlier film in
Picasso Summer
. Based on a Ray Bradbury story, the film concerns vacationing couple Albert Finney and Yvette Mimieux. Enchanted by the works of Pablo Picasso, Finney and Mimieux trek through the length and breadth of Europe to meet the great artist himself. Their odyssey concludes on a melancholy note, but not before an engaging animated sequences wherein Picasso's paintings come to life, as it were. Filmed in 1969,
was long withheld from release; in fact, most filmgoers didn't get to see it until it began making the TV rounds.