‘Smiles’ Is Best Prelude to ‘Music’

If you want to prepare yourself for Stephen Sondheim’s musical “A Little Night Music” now at the Doolittle Theatre, skip the stilted movie version and go directly to the lyrical film that inspired it, Ingmar Bergman’s “Smiles of a Summer Night.”

“A Little Night Music,” the 1978 film based on the Sondheim Broadway musical (124 minutes, Image Entertainment CLV extended play laser disc) boasted a nice pedigree, but fell far short of its promise. It was directed by Harold Prince, Sondheim’s longtime stage collaborator, and featured Sondheim regular Len Cariou (“Sweeney Todd”) and the entrancing English actress Diana Rigg. But the result is a turgid, labored piece of work. Glynis Johns as Mme. Armfeldt at the Doolittle makes Hermione Gingold’s film performance appear stagy and ludicrous, and Lois Nettleton’s Desiree makes Elizabeth Taylor’s performance in this pivotal role seem, at best, undernourished. By the time Taylor wades through “Send in the Clowns,” you need an immediate antidote: the Broadway original cast album available on audio compact disc.

A bracing tonic is the witty 1955 Swedish classic “Smiles of a Summer Night,” the 19th-Century comedy of manners that inspired Sondheim. The Criterion Collection has produced a sparkling laser-disc edition of Bergman’s black-and-white elegy to fleeting love (108 minutes, CLV extended play). Twenty-eight chapter stops make it possible to replay favorite scenes in an instant, enabling you to catch the smiling summer night whenever the fancy hits you.