Summer of '42
Encyclopedia
Summer of '42 is a 1971 American coming-of-age drama film
based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman Raucher
. It tells the story of how Raucher, in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation on Nantucket Island
, off the coast of New England
, embarked on a one-sided romance with a woman, Dorothy, whose husband had gone off to fight in World War II
.
The film was directed by Robert Mulligan
, and starred Gary Grimes
as Hermie, Jerry Houser
as his best friend Oscy, Oliver Conant
as their nerdy young friend Benjie, Jennifer O'Neill
as Hermie's mysterious love interest, and Katherine Allentuck and Christopher Norris
as a pair of girls whom Hermie and Oscy attempt to seduce. Mulligan also has an uncredited role as the voice of the adult Hermie. Maureen Stapleton
(Allentuck's real life mother) also appears in a small, uncredited voice role (calling after Hermie as he leaves the house in an early scene, and after he enters his room in a later scene).
Raucher's novelization
of his screenplay was released prior to the film's release and became a runaway bestseller, to the point that audiences lost sight of the fact that the book was based on the film and not vice-versa. Though a pop culture phenomenon in the first half of the 1970s, the novelization went out of print and slipped into obscurity throughout the next two decades until a Broadway
adaptation in 2001 brought it back into the public light and prompted Barnes & Noble
to acquire the publishing rights to the book.
) and his friends — jock
Oscy (Jerry Houser
) and introverted nerd
Benjie (Oliver Conant
) — spent playing on the beach. They spot a young soldier carrying his new bride (Jennifer O'Neill
) into a house on the beach and are struck by her beauty, especially Hermie, who is unable to get her out of his mind.
They continue spending afternoons on the beach where, in the midst of scantily-clad teenage girls, their thoughts invariably turn to sex
. All of them are virgins: Oscy is obsessed with the act of sex, while Hermie finds himself developing romantic
interest in the bride, whose husband he spots leaving the island on a water taxi one morning. Later that day, Hermie finds her trying to carry bags of groceries by herself, and helps get them back to her house. They strike up a friendship and he agrees to return to help her with chores.
Meanwhile, Oscy and Hermie, thanks to a sex manual discovered by Benjie, become convinced they know everything necessary to lose their virginity. Led by Oscy, they test this by going to the cinema and picking-up a trio of high-school girls. Oscy stakes out the most attractive one, Miriam (Christopher Norris
), "giving" Hermie her less attractive friend, Aggie (Katherine Allentuck) and leaving Benjie with Gloria, a heavyset girl with braces
. Frightened by the immediacy of sex, Benjie runs off, and is not seen by Hermie or Oscy again that night. Hermie and Oscy spend the entirety of the evening's film attempting to "put the moves" on Miriam and Aggie. Oscy pursues Miriam, eventually making out with her during the movie, and later learns her ways are well-known on the island. Hermie finds himself succeeding with Aggie, who allows him to grope what he thinks is her breast; Oscy later points out Hermie was fondling her arm.
The next morning, Hermie helps the bride move boxes into her attic and she thanks him by giving him a kiss on the forehead. Later, in preparation for a marshmallow roast on the beach with Aggie and Miriam, Hermie goes to the local drugstore. In a painfully humorous sequence he builds up the nerve to ask for condom
s.
That night, Hermie roasts marshmallows with Aggie while Oscy succeeds in having sex with Miriam between the dunes. He is so successful he sneaks over to Hermie and Aggie to ask for more condoms. Confused as to what's happening, Aggie follows Oscy back, where she sees him having sex with Miriam and runs home, upset.
The next day, Hermie comes across the bride sitting outside her house, writing to her husband. Hermie offers to keep her company that night and she says she looks forward to seeing him, revealing her name is Dorothy. An elated Hermie goes home and puts on a suit, dress shirt and heads back to Dorothy's house, running into Oscy on the way; Oscy relates that Miriam's appendix
burst and she's been rushed to the mainland. Hermie, convinced he is at the brink of adulthood because of his relationship with Dorothy, brushes Oscy off.
He heads to her house, which is eerily quiet. Going in, he discovers a bottle of whiskey, several cigarette butts, and a telegram from the government. Dorothy's husband is dead, his plane shot down over France. Dorothy comes out of her bedroom, crying, and Hermie tells her "I'm sorry." The sense of empathy triggers her to channel to Hermie some of her loneliness. She turns on the record player and invites Hermie to dance with her. They kiss and embrace, tears on both their faces. Without speaking, and to the sound only of the waves, they move to the bedroom, where she draws him into bed and gently makes love with him. Afterward, withdrawing again into her world of hurt, Dorothy retires to the porch, leaving Hermie alone in her bedroom. He approaches her on the porch, where she can only quietly say "Good night, Hermie." He leaves, his last image of Dorothy being of her leaning against the railing, as she smokes a cigarette and stares into the night sky.
At dawn Hermie meets Oscy and the two share a moment of reconciliation, with Oscy informing Hermie that Miriam will recover. Oscy, in an uncharacteristic act of sensitivity, lets Hermie be by himself, departing with the words, "Sometimes life is one big pain in the ass."
Trying to sort out what has happened, Hermie goes back to Dorothy's house. Dorothy has fled the island in the night and an envelope is tacked to the front door with Hermie's name on it. Inside is a note from Dorothy, saying she hopes he understands she must go back home as there is much to do. She assures Hermie she will never forget him, and he will find his way of remembering what happened that night. Her note closes with the hope that Hermie may be spared the senseless tragedies of life.
In the final scene, Hermie, suddenly approaching manhood, is seen looking at Dorothy's old house and the ocean from a distance before he turns to join his friends. To bittersweet music, the adult Raucher sadly recounts that he has never seen Dorothy again or learned what became of her.
After the film ends, the cast is given by showing a still photo of each of the primary cast members with a superimposed name. The movie had exactly eight on-screen speaking characters: Dorothy, the Terrible Trio, the three teenaged girls and the druggist.
. Raucher showed Mulligan the script, and Mulligan took it to Warner Bros., knowing that the studio was looking for a follow up to Mockingbird. Mulligan argued the film could be shot for the relatively low price of a million dollars, and Warner approved it. They had so little faith in the film becoming a box-office success, though, they shied from paying Raucher outright for the script, instead promising him ten percent of the gross.
When casting for the role of Dorothy, Warner Bros. declined to audition any actresses younger than the age of thirty; Jennifer O'Neill
's agent, who had developed a fondness for the script, convinced Warner Bros. to audition his client, who was only twenty-two at the time. O'Neill auditioned for the role, albeit hesitantly, not wanting to perform any nude scenes; O'Neill ended up getting the role and Robert Mulligan agreed to find a way to make the film work without blatant nudity.
Though the film took place on Nantucket, by the 1970s the island was too far modernized to be convincingly transformed to resemble a 1940s resort, so production was taken to Mendocino, California, on the West Coast of the US. Shooting took place over eight weeks, during which Jennifer O'Neill was sequestered from the three boys cast as "The Terrible Trio," in order to ensure that they didn't become close and ruin the sense of awkwardness and distance that their characters felt towards Dorothy. Production ran smoothly, finishing on schedule.
After production, Warner Bros., still wary about the film only being a minor success, asked Raucher to adapt his script into a book. Raucher wrote it in three weeks, and Warner Bros. released it prior to the film to build interest in the story. The book quickly became a national bestseller, so that when trailers premiered in theatres, the film was billed as being "based on the national bestseller," despite the film having been completed first. Ultimately, the book became one of the best selling novels of the first half of the 1970s, requiring 23 re-prints between 1971 and 1974 to keep up with customer demand.
s written by Herman Raucher; they detailed the events in his life over the course of the summer he spent on Nantucket Island in 1942 when he was fourteen years old. Originally, the film was meant to be a tribute to his friend Oscar "Oscy" Seltzer, an Army medic killed in the Korean War
. Seltzer was shot dead on a battlefield in Korea whilst attending to a wounded man; this happened on Raucher's birthday, and consequently, Raucher has not celebrated a birthday since. During the course of writing the screenplay, Raucher came to the realization that despite growing up with Oscy and having bonded with him through their formative years, the two had never really had any meaningful conversations or gotten to know one another on a more personal level.
Instead, Raucher decided to focus on the first major adult experience of his life, that of falling in love for the first time. The woman (named Dorothy, like her screen counterpart) was a fellow vacationer on the island whom Raucher had befriended one day when he helped her carry groceries home; he became a friend of her and her husband and helped her with chores after her husband was called to fight in World War II
. Raucher went to bed with her one night when he came to visit her, arriving only minutes after she received notification of her husband's death. The next morning, Raucher discovered that she had left the island, leaving behind a note for him (which is read at the end of the film and reproduced in the book). He never saw her again; his last "encounter" with her, recounted on an episode of The Mike Douglas Show
, came after the film's release in 1971, when she was one of over a dozen women who wrote letters to Raucher claiming to be "his" Dorothy. Raucher recognized the "real" Dorothy's handwriting, and she confirmed her identity by making references to certain events only she could have known about. She told Raucher that she had lived for years with the guilt that she had potentially traumatized him and ruined his life. She told Raucher that she was glad he turned out all right, and that they had best not re-visit the past.
In a 2002 interview, Raucher lamented never hearing from her again and expressed his hope that she was still alive. Raucher's novelization of the screenplay, with the dedication, "To those I love, past and present," serves more as the tribute to Seltzer that he had intended the film to be, with the focus of the book being more on the two boys' relationship than Raucher's relationship with Dorothy. Consequently, the book also mentions Seltzer's death, while in the film adaptation, Seltzer's death is mentioned only in the titles that appear at the end of the film.
As well as being a commercial success, Summer of '42 also received rave critical reviews. It went on to be nominated for over a dozen awards, including Golden Globe Award
s for "Best Motion Picture - Drama"
and "Best Director"
, and the Academy Award for "Best Original Screenplay". Ultimately, the film only won two awards, the "Best Score"
Oscar" and the BAFTA Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, both to Michel Legrand. Still, it counted among its fans Stanley Kubrick
, who in a rare moment of pop-culture infusion into his films, had the film play on a television in a scene in The Shining
.
, a slice-of-life film made up of vignettes about Herman Raucher and Oscar Seltzer's experiences in college prior to fighting in the Korean War
; because the timeline of Raucher's life was altered for Summer of '42, Class of 44 involves the boys facing army service in the closing days of WWII rather than Korea. The only crew member from Summer of '42 to return to the project was Raucher himself, who wrote the script; a new director and composer were brought in to replace Mulligan and Legrand. Of the principal four cast members of Summer of '42, only Jerry Houser and Gary Grimes returned for prominent roles, with Oliver Conant making two brief appearances totaling less than two minutes of screen time. Jennifer O'Neill did not appear in the film at all, nor was the character of Dorothy mentioned. The film is noted for featuring a young, slim John Candy
briefly appearing in his first film role. The film met with poor critical reviews; the only three reviews available at rottentomatoes.com are resoundingly negative, with Channel 4 calling it "a big disappointment," and The New York Times
stating "The only things worth attention in 'Class of 44' are the period details," and "'Class of '44' seems less like a movie than 95 minutes of animated wallpaper."
, many of which are variants upon "The Summer Knows", the film's theme. In addition to Legrand's scoring, the film also features the song "Hold Tight" by The Andrews Sisters
and the theme from Now, Voyager
. Due to this lack of songs, when the soundtrack was released, it contained not only the score to Summer, but also Legrand's composition "The Picasso Suite." In spite of this, many issues of the album are still labeled as exclusively being the soundtrack to Summer, while others contain the notation in small print on the album cover "Also contains 'The Picasso Suite'".
(who had a charting hit with his 1971 version), Tony Bennett
, Frank Sinatra
, Andy Williams
, Jonny Fair
, and Barbra Streisand
.
The 1973 song "Summer (The First Time)" by Bobby Goldsboro
has almost exactly the same subject and apparent setting, although there is no direct credited link. Bryan Adams
has, however, credited the film as being a partial inspiration for his 1985 hit "Summer of '69
."
's 1980 film version of Stephen King's The Shining
, Wendy (Shelley Duval) is shown watching Summer of '42 on television (a brief clip of the scene featuring Hermie helping Dorothy bring her grocieres in the house is playing on the television in the background during the scene).
An episode of the 1970s sitcom Happy Days
was loosely based upon Summer of '42, with Richie Cunningham befriending a Korean War widow.
The Simpsons
episode "Summer of 4 Ft. 2
" (alternately titled 'Summer of 4'2"') was largely a parody of Summer of '42, replacing the romantic desire of Hermie for Dorothy with Lisa's desire to befriend a group of beach dwellers. It amalgamated scenes from another early '70s coming-of-age film, American Graffiti
(both acknowledged in the DVD commentary for the episode).
In the Family Guy
episode "Play It Again, Brian", Brian wins an award for an essay, and reads an excerpt that includes the lines: "Nothing from the first day I saw her, and nothing that has happened to me since, has ever been as frightening and as confusing, for no person I've ever known has ever done more to make me feel more sure, more insecure, more important and less significant." The excerpt is almost verbatim the conclusion of the narrator's opening monologue in Summer; later in that episode, Brian admits that he "ripped off" most of the essay from Summer of '42.
has numerous similarities to both Summer of '42 and Class of '44, with several incidents (most notably a subplot dealing with the premature death of the protagonist's father and the protagonist's response to it) appearing to have been directly lifted from Raucher's own life; Jennifer O'Neill stated in 2002 she believes "Home" was an attempted remake of "Summer."
There are also similarities between Summer of '42 and 2000's Malèna
, another coming-of-age film set in the context of World War II, and starring Monica Bellucci
and Giuseppe Sulfaro.
. Nevertheless, the play was enough to spark interest in the film and book with a new generation, prompting Warner to re-issue the book (which had since gone out of print, along with all of Raucher's other works) for sale with Barnes & Noble
's online bookstore, and to restore the film and release it on DVD. The musical has since been performed across the country, at venues such as Kalliope Stage in Cleveland Heights, Ohio
in 2004 (directed by Paul Gurgol) and Mill Mountain Theatre
in Roanoke
, Virginia
, (directed by Jere Hodgin and choreographed by Bernard Monroe), and was subsequently recorded as a concert by the York Theatre Company in 2006.
Drama film
A drama film is a film genre that depends mostly on in-depth development of realistic characters dealing with emotional themes. Dramatic themes such as alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, moral dilemmas, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, poverty, class divisions, violence against women...
based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman Raucher
Herman Raucher
Herman Raucher is an American author who has written several screenplays, among them the popular Summer of '42 and The Great Santini and several novels and plays...
. It tells the story of how Raucher, in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation on Nantucket Island
Nantucket, Massachusetts
Nantucket is an island south of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, in the United States. Together with the small islands of Tuckernuck and Muskeget, it constitutes the town of Nantucket, Massachusetts, and the coterminous Nantucket County, which are consolidated. Part of the town is designated the Nantucket...
, off the coast of New England
New England
New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...
, embarked on a one-sided romance with a woman, Dorothy, whose husband had gone off to fight in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
.
The film was directed by Robert Mulligan
Robert Mulligan
Robert Mulligan was an American film and television director best known as the director of humanistic American dramas, including To Kill A Mockingbird , Summer of '42 , The Other , Same Time, Next Year and The Man in the Moon...
, and starred Gary Grimes
Gary Grimes
Gary Grimes is a former American actor.-Biography:Gary Grimes' first major role was in the 1971 motion picture Summer of '42, playing a teenager who has an affair with a beautiful older woman, played by Jennifer O'Neill...
as Hermie, Jerry Houser
Jerry Houser
Jerry Houser is an American character actor and voice actor in film and television.-Career:Houser was born in Los Angeles, California. Since 1971, he has appeared in countless films, TV series, animated series, and commercials...
as his best friend Oscy, Oliver Conant
Oliver Conant
Oliver Conant is an American actor.Born in New York City, New York, Conant appeared as "Benji" in the 1971 coming-of-age drama, Summer of '42 and the Class of '44, appearing in both with Gary Grimes and Jerry Houser as a trio of adolescent boys...
as their nerdy young friend Benjie, Jennifer O'Neill
Jennifer O'Neill
-Early life:O'Neill was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the daughter of a famous Spanish-Irish dental supply import/export businessman, Oscar D' O'Neill and his English wife. As a teenager, O'Neill worked as a fashion model and appeared in television commercials and on magazine covers before moving...
as Hermie's mysterious love interest, and Katherine Allentuck and Christopher Norris
Christopher Norris (actress)
Christopher Norris is an American movie and television actress. She is probably best known for her portrayal of nurse Gloria "Ripples" Brancusi in the CBS television series Trapper John, M.D....
as a pair of girls whom Hermie and Oscy attempt to seduce. Mulligan also has an uncredited role as the voice of the adult Hermie. Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton
Maureen Stapleton was an American actress in film, theater and television.-Early life:Stapleton was born Lois Maureen Stapleton in Troy, New York, the daughter of Irene and John P. Stapleton, and grew up in a strict Irish American Catholic family...
(Allentuck's real life mother) also appears in a small, uncredited voice role (calling after Hermie as he leaves the house in an early scene, and after he enters his room in a later scene).
Raucher's novelization
Novelization
A novelization is a novel that is written based on some other media story form rather than as an original work.Novelizations of films usually add background material not found in the original work to flesh out the story, because novels are generally longer than screenplays...
of his screenplay was released prior to the film's release and became a runaway bestseller, to the point that audiences lost sight of the fact that the book was based on the film and not vice-versa. Though a pop culture phenomenon in the first half of the 1970s, the novelization went out of print and slipped into obscurity throughout the next two decades until a Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
adaptation in 2001 brought it back into the public light and prompted Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
to acquire the publishing rights to the book.
Synopsis
The film opens with a series of still photographs appearing over melancholic music, representing the abstract memories of the unseen Herman Raucher, now a middle-aged man. We then hear Raucher (voiced by Robert Mulligan) recalling the summer he spent on the island in 1942. The film flashes back to a day that then 15-year-old "Hermie" (Gary GrimesGary Grimes
Gary Grimes is a former American actor.-Biography:Gary Grimes' first major role was in the 1971 motion picture Summer of '42, playing a teenager who has an affair with a beautiful older woman, played by Jennifer O'Neill...
) and his friends — jock
Jock (subculture)
The term jock, when used primarily in the United States, refers to the classic stereotype of a male athlete. It is generally a negative stereotype, and is attributed mostly to high school and college athletics participants who form a distinct youth subculture. In sociology, the jock is thought to...
Oscy (Jerry Houser
Jerry Houser
Jerry Houser is an American character actor and voice actor in film and television.-Career:Houser was born in Los Angeles, California. Since 1971, he has appeared in countless films, TV series, animated series, and commercials...
) and introverted nerd
Nerd
Nerd is a derogatory slang term for an intelligent but socially awkward and obsessive person who spends time on unpopular or obscure pursuits, to the exclusion of more mainstream activities. Nerds are considered to be awkward, shy, and unattractive...
Benjie (Oliver Conant
Oliver Conant
Oliver Conant is an American actor.Born in New York City, New York, Conant appeared as "Benji" in the 1971 coming-of-age drama, Summer of '42 and the Class of '44, appearing in both with Gary Grimes and Jerry Houser as a trio of adolescent boys...
) — spent playing on the beach. They spot a young soldier carrying his new bride (Jennifer O'Neill
Jennifer O'Neill
-Early life:O'Neill was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the daughter of a famous Spanish-Irish dental supply import/export businessman, Oscar D' O'Neill and his English wife. As a teenager, O'Neill worked as a fashion model and appeared in television commercials and on magazine covers before moving...
) into a house on the beach and are struck by her beauty, especially Hermie, who is unable to get her out of his mind.
They continue spending afternoons on the beach where, in the midst of scantily-clad teenage girls, their thoughts invariably turn to sex
Sex
In biology, sex is a process of combining and mixing genetic traits, often resulting in the specialization of organisms into a male or female variety . Sexual reproduction involves combining specialized cells to form offspring that inherit traits from both parents...
. All of them are virgins: Oscy is obsessed with the act of sex, while Hermie finds himself developing romantic
Romantic love
Romance is the pleasurable feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.In the context of romantic love relationships, romance usually implies an expression of one's love, or one's deep emotional desires to connect with another person....
interest in the bride, whose husband he spots leaving the island on a water taxi one morning. Later that day, Hermie finds her trying to carry bags of groceries by herself, and helps get them back to her house. They strike up a friendship and he agrees to return to help her with chores.
Meanwhile, Oscy and Hermie, thanks to a sex manual discovered by Benjie, become convinced they know everything necessary to lose their virginity. Led by Oscy, they test this by going to the cinema and picking-up a trio of high-school girls. Oscy stakes out the most attractive one, Miriam (Christopher Norris
Christopher Norris (actress)
Christopher Norris is an American movie and television actress. She is probably best known for her portrayal of nurse Gloria "Ripples" Brancusi in the CBS television series Trapper John, M.D....
), "giving" Hermie her less attractive friend, Aggie (Katherine Allentuck) and leaving Benjie with Gloria, a heavyset girl with braces
Dental brace
Dental braces are devices used in the orthodontic industry that help align and straighten teeth and help to position them with regard to a person’s bite, while also working to improve dental health...
. Frightened by the immediacy of sex, Benjie runs off, and is not seen by Hermie or Oscy again that night. Hermie and Oscy spend the entirety of the evening's film attempting to "put the moves" on Miriam and Aggie. Oscy pursues Miriam, eventually making out with her during the movie, and later learns her ways are well-known on the island. Hermie finds himself succeeding with Aggie, who allows him to grope what he thinks is her breast; Oscy later points out Hermie was fondling her arm.
The next morning, Hermie helps the bride move boxes into her attic and she thanks him by giving him a kiss on the forehead. Later, in preparation for a marshmallow roast on the beach with Aggie and Miriam, Hermie goes to the local drugstore. In a painfully humorous sequence he builds up the nerve to ask for condom
Condom
A condom is a barrier device most commonly used during sexual intercourse to reduce the probability of pregnancy and spreading sexually transmitted diseases . It is put on a man's erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner...
s.
That night, Hermie roasts marshmallows with Aggie while Oscy succeeds in having sex with Miriam between the dunes. He is so successful he sneaks over to Hermie and Aggie to ask for more condoms. Confused as to what's happening, Aggie follows Oscy back, where she sees him having sex with Miriam and runs home, upset.
The next day, Hermie comes across the bride sitting outside her house, writing to her husband. Hermie offers to keep her company that night and she says she looks forward to seeing him, revealing her name is Dorothy. An elated Hermie goes home and puts on a suit, dress shirt and heads back to Dorothy's house, running into Oscy on the way; Oscy relates that Miriam's appendix
Vermiform appendix
The appendix is a blind-ended tube connected to the cecum , from which it develops embryologically. The cecum is a pouchlike structure of the colon...
burst and she's been rushed to the mainland. Hermie, convinced he is at the brink of adulthood because of his relationship with Dorothy, brushes Oscy off.
He heads to her house, which is eerily quiet. Going in, he discovers a bottle of whiskey, several cigarette butts, and a telegram from the government. Dorothy's husband is dead, his plane shot down over France. Dorothy comes out of her bedroom, crying, and Hermie tells her "I'm sorry." The sense of empathy triggers her to channel to Hermie some of her loneliness. She turns on the record player and invites Hermie to dance with her. They kiss and embrace, tears on both their faces. Without speaking, and to the sound only of the waves, they move to the bedroom, where she draws him into bed and gently makes love with him. Afterward, withdrawing again into her world of hurt, Dorothy retires to the porch, leaving Hermie alone in her bedroom. He approaches her on the porch, where she can only quietly say "Good night, Hermie." He leaves, his last image of Dorothy being of her leaning against the railing, as she smokes a cigarette and stares into the night sky.
At dawn Hermie meets Oscy and the two share a moment of reconciliation, with Oscy informing Hermie that Miriam will recover. Oscy, in an uncharacteristic act of sensitivity, lets Hermie be by himself, departing with the words, "Sometimes life is one big pain in the ass."
Trying to sort out what has happened, Hermie goes back to Dorothy's house. Dorothy has fled the island in the night and an envelope is tacked to the front door with Hermie's name on it. Inside is a note from Dorothy, saying she hopes he understands she must go back home as there is much to do. She assures Hermie she will never forget him, and he will find his way of remembering what happened that night. Her note closes with the hope that Hermie may be spared the senseless tragedies of life.
In the final scene, Hermie, suddenly approaching manhood, is seen looking at Dorothy's old house and the ocean from a distance before he turns to join his friends. To bittersweet music, the adult Raucher sadly recounts that he has never seen Dorothy again or learned what became of her.
After the film ends, the cast is given by showing a still photo of each of the primary cast members with a superimposed name. The movie had exactly eight on-screen speaking characters: Dorothy, the Terrible Trio, the three teenaged girls and the druggist.
Production
Herman Raucher wrote the film script in the 1950s during his tenure as a television writer, but "couldn't give it away." In the 1960s, he met Robert Mulligan, who had just finished directing To Kill a MockingbirdTo Kill a Mockingbird (film)
To Kill a Mockingbird is a 1962 American drama film adaptation of Harper Lee's novel of the same name directed by Robert Mulligan. It stars Mary Badham in the role of Scout and Gregory Peck in the role of Atticus Finch....
. Raucher showed Mulligan the script, and Mulligan took it to Warner Bros., knowing that the studio was looking for a follow up to Mockingbird. Mulligan argued the film could be shot for the relatively low price of a million dollars, and Warner approved it. They had so little faith in the film becoming a box-office success, though, they shied from paying Raucher outright for the script, instead promising him ten percent of the gross.
When casting for the role of Dorothy, Warner Bros. declined to audition any actresses younger than the age of thirty; Jennifer O'Neill
Jennifer O'Neill
-Early life:O'Neill was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, the daughter of a famous Spanish-Irish dental supply import/export businessman, Oscar D' O'Neill and his English wife. As a teenager, O'Neill worked as a fashion model and appeared in television commercials and on magazine covers before moving...
's agent, who had developed a fondness for the script, convinced Warner Bros. to audition his client, who was only twenty-two at the time. O'Neill auditioned for the role, albeit hesitantly, not wanting to perform any nude scenes; O'Neill ended up getting the role and Robert Mulligan agreed to find a way to make the film work without blatant nudity.
Though the film took place on Nantucket, by the 1970s the island was too far modernized to be convincingly transformed to resemble a 1940s resort, so production was taken to Mendocino, California, on the West Coast of the US. Shooting took place over eight weeks, during which Jennifer O'Neill was sequestered from the three boys cast as "The Terrible Trio," in order to ensure that they didn't become close and ruin the sense of awkwardness and distance that their characters felt towards Dorothy. Production ran smoothly, finishing on schedule.
After production, Warner Bros., still wary about the film only being a minor success, asked Raucher to adapt his script into a book. Raucher wrote it in three weeks, and Warner Bros. released it prior to the film to build interest in the story. The book quickly became a national bestseller, so that when trailers premiered in theatres, the film was billed as being "based on the national bestseller," despite the film having been completed first. Ultimately, the book became one of the best selling novels of the first half of the 1970s, requiring 23 re-prints between 1971 and 1974 to keep up with customer demand.
Factual basis
The film (and subsequent novel) were memoirMemoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s written by Herman Raucher; they detailed the events in his life over the course of the summer he spent on Nantucket Island in 1942 when he was fourteen years old. Originally, the film was meant to be a tribute to his friend Oscar "Oscy" Seltzer, an Army medic killed in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
. Seltzer was shot dead on a battlefield in Korea whilst attending to a wounded man; this happened on Raucher's birthday, and consequently, Raucher has not celebrated a birthday since. During the course of writing the screenplay, Raucher came to the realization that despite growing up with Oscy and having bonded with him through their formative years, the two had never really had any meaningful conversations or gotten to know one another on a more personal level.
Instead, Raucher decided to focus on the first major adult experience of his life, that of falling in love for the first time. The woman (named Dorothy, like her screen counterpart) was a fellow vacationer on the island whom Raucher had befriended one day when he helped her carry groceries home; he became a friend of her and her husband and helped her with chores after her husband was called to fight in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. Raucher went to bed with her one night when he came to visit her, arriving only minutes after she received notification of her husband's death. The next morning, Raucher discovered that she had left the island, leaving behind a note for him (which is read at the end of the film and reproduced in the book). He never saw her again; his last "encounter" with her, recounted on an episode of The Mike Douglas Show
The Mike Douglas Show
The Mike Douglas Show is an American daytime television talk show hosted by Mike Douglas that aired in syndication from 1961 to 1982, distributed by Westinghouse Broadcasting and for much of its run, originated from studios of two of the company's TV stations.The program featured light banter with...
, came after the film's release in 1971, when she was one of over a dozen women who wrote letters to Raucher claiming to be "his" Dorothy. Raucher recognized the "real" Dorothy's handwriting, and she confirmed her identity by making references to certain events only she could have known about. She told Raucher that she had lived for years with the guilt that she had potentially traumatized him and ruined his life. She told Raucher that she was glad he turned out all right, and that they had best not re-visit the past.
In a 2002 interview, Raucher lamented never hearing from her again and expressed his hope that she was still alive. Raucher's novelization of the screenplay, with the dedication, "To those I love, past and present," serves more as the tribute to Seltzer that he had intended the film to be, with the focus of the book being more on the two boys' relationship than Raucher's relationship with Dorothy. Consequently, the book also mentions Seltzer's death, while in the film adaptation, Seltzer's death is mentioned only in the titles that appear at the end of the film.
Reception and awards
The film became a blockbuster upon its release, grossing $25 million, making it the fourth-highest grossing film of 1971 and one of the most successful films in history, with an expense to profit ratio of 1:25; beyond that, it is estimated video rentals and purchases in the United States since the 1980s have produced an additional $20.5 million. On this point, Raucher says his ten percent of the gross, in addition to royalties from book sales, has "paid bills ever since."As well as being a commercial success, Summer of '42 also received rave critical reviews. It went on to be nominated for over a dozen awards, including Golden Globe Award
Golden Globe Award
The Golden Globe Award is an accolade bestowed by the 93 members of the Hollywood Foreign Press Association recognizing excellence in film and television, both domestic and foreign...
s for "Best Motion Picture - Drama"
Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture - Drama
This page lists the winners and nominees for the Golden Globe Award for Best Motion Picture – Drama, since its institution in 1951. The organizer, Hollywood Foreign Press Association , is an organization of journalists who cover the United States film industry, but are affiliated with publications...
and "Best Director"
Golden Globe Award for Best Director - Motion Picture
This page lists the winners of and nominees for the Golden Globe Award for Best Director. Since its inception in 1943, it has been presented annually by the Hollywood Foreign Press Association, an organization composed of journalists who cover the United States film industry for publications based...
, and the Academy Award for "Best Original Screenplay". Ultimately, the film only won two awards, the "Best Score"
Academy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
Oscar" and the BAFTA Anthony Asquith Award for Film Music, both to Michel Legrand. Still, it counted among its fans Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
, who in a rare moment of pop-culture infusion into his films, had the film play on a television in a scene in The Shining
The Shining (film)
The Shining is a 1980 psychological horror film produced and directed by Stanley Kubrick, co-written with novelist Diane Johnson, and starring Jack Nicholson, Shelley Duvall, and Danny Lloyd. The film is based on the novel of the same name by Stephen King. A writer, Jack Torrance, takes a job as an...
.
Sequel
In 1973, the film was followed by Class of '44Class of '44
Class Of '44 is the 1973 sequel to Summer of '42.The film is a slice-of-life style autobiography of sorts, depicting Herman Raucher's first year in college, where he falls in love with Julie under the shadow of the growing threat of WW II...
, a slice-of-life film made up of vignettes about Herman Raucher and Oscar Seltzer's experiences in college prior to fighting in the Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
; because the timeline of Raucher's life was altered for Summer of '42, Class of 44 involves the boys facing army service in the closing days of WWII rather than Korea. The only crew member from Summer of '42 to return to the project was Raucher himself, who wrote the script; a new director and composer were brought in to replace Mulligan and Legrand. Of the principal four cast members of Summer of '42, only Jerry Houser and Gary Grimes returned for prominent roles, with Oliver Conant making two brief appearances totaling less than two minutes of screen time. Jennifer O'Neill did not appear in the film at all, nor was the character of Dorothy mentioned. The film is noted for featuring a young, slim John Candy
John Candy
John Franklin Candy was a Canadian actor and comedian. He rose to fame as a member of the Toronto branch of The Second City and its related Second City Television series, and through his appearances in comedy films such as Stripes, Splash, Cool Runnings, The Great Outdoors, Spaceballs, and Uncle...
briefly appearing in his first film role. The film met with poor critical reviews; the only three reviews available at rottentomatoes.com are resoundingly negative, with Channel 4 calling it "a big disappointment," and The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
stating "The only things worth attention in 'Class of 44' are the period details," and "'Class of '44' seems less like a movie than 95 minutes of animated wallpaper."
Soundtrack
The film's soundtrack consists almost entirely of compositions by Michel LegrandMichel Legrand
Michel Jean Legrand is a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, and pianist...
, many of which are variants upon "The Summer Knows", the film's theme. In addition to Legrand's scoring, the film also features the song "Hold Tight" by The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters
The Andrews Sisters were a highly successful close harmony singing group of the swing and boogie-woogie eras. The group consisted of three sisters: contralto LaVerne Sophia Andrews , soprano Maxene Angelyn Andrews , and mezzo-soprano Patricia Marie "Patty" Andrews...
and the theme from Now, Voyager
Now, Voyager
Now, Voyager is a 1942 American drama film starring Bette Davis, Paul Henreid, and Claude Rains, and directed by Irving Rapper. The screenplay by Casey Robinson is based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Olive Higgins Prouty....
. Due to this lack of songs, when the soundtrack was released, it contained not only the score to Summer, but also Legrand's composition "The Picasso Suite." In spite of this, many issues of the album are still labeled as exclusively being the soundtrack to Summer, while others contain the notation in small print on the album cover "Also contains 'The Picasso Suite'".
Music
Legrand's theme song for the film, "The Summer Knows," has since become a pop standard, being recorded by such artists as Peter NeroPeter Nero
Peter Nero is an American pianist and pops conductor.-Early life:Born in Brooklyn, New York, As Bernard Nierow, Nero started his formal music training at the age of seven. He studied piano under Frederick Bried...
(who had a charting hit with his 1971 version), Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett
Tony Bennett is an American singer of popular music, standards, show tunes, and jazz....
, Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
, Andy Williams
Andy Williams
Howard Andrew "Andy" Williams is an American singer who has recorded 18 Gold- and three Platinum-certified albums. He hosted The Andy Williams Show, a TV variety show, from 1962 to 1971, as well as numerous television specials, and owns his own theater, the Moon River Theatre in Branson, Missouri,...
, Jonny Fair
Jonny Fair
Jonny Fair is an American jazz/folk singer, musician, actor and composer. Fair composed and performed the music and acted in the 2007 motion picture Gordon Glass starring Omar Benson Miller...
, and Barbra Streisand
Barbra Streisand
Barbra Joan Streisand is an American singer, actress, film producer and director. She has won two Academy Awards, eight Grammy Awards, four Emmy Awards, a Special Tony Award, an American Film Institute award, a Peabody Award, and is one of the few entertainers who have won an Oscar, Emmy, Grammy,...
.
The 1973 song "Summer (The First Time)" by Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro
Bobby Goldsboro is an American country and pop singer-songwriter. He had a string of Pop and Country hits during the 1960s and 1970s, including his signature #1 classic "Honey," which sold well over one million copies in the United States.-Early life:Goldsboro was born in Marianna, Florida...
has almost exactly the same subject and apparent setting, although there is no direct credited link. Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams
Bryan Adams, is a Canadian rock singer-songwriter, guitarist, bassist, producer, actor and photographer. Adams has won dozens of awards and nominations, including 20 Juno Awards among 56 nominations. He has also received 15 Grammy Award nominations including a win for Best Song Written...
has, however, credited the film as being a partial inspiration for his 1985 hit "Summer of '69
Summer of '69
"Summer of '69" is a song recorded by Canadian recording artist Bryan Adams, from his fourth studio album, Reckless . The song was written by Adams and Jim Vallance, a long-time writing partner of Adams. "Summer of '69" was produced by Adams and Bob Clearmountain. It was released in June 1985 under...
."
Film and television
In Stanley KubrickStanley Kubrick
Stanley Kubrick was an American film director, writer, producer, and photographer who lived in England during most of the last four decades of his career...
's 1980 film version of Stephen King's The Shining
The Shining (novel)
The Shining is a 1977 horror novel by American author Stephen King. The title was inspired by the John Lennon song "Instant Karma!", which contained the line "We all shine on…". It was King's third published novel, and first hardback bestseller, and the success of the book firmly established King...
, Wendy (Shelley Duval) is shown watching Summer of '42 on television (a brief clip of the scene featuring Hermie helping Dorothy bring her grocieres in the house is playing on the television in the background during the scene).
An episode of the 1970s sitcom Happy Days
Happy Days
Happy Days is an American television sitcom that originally aired from January 15, 1974, to September 24, 1984, on ABC. Created by Garry Marshall, the series presents an idealized vision of life in mid-1950s to mid-1960s America....
was loosely based upon Summer of '42, with Richie Cunningham befriending a Korean War widow.
The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode "Summer of 4 Ft. 2
Summer of 4 Ft. 2
"Summer of 4 Ft. 2" is the twenty-fifth and last episode of The Simpsons seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on May 19, 1996. In the episode, the Simpson family goes to Ned Flanders family's beach house. Hanging around with a new set of children, Lisa becomes...
" (alternately titled 'Summer of 4'2"') was largely a parody of Summer of '42, replacing the romantic desire of Hermie for Dorothy with Lisa's desire to befriend a group of beach dwellers. It amalgamated scenes from another early '70s coming-of-age film, American Graffiti
American Graffiti
American Graffiti is a 1973 coming of age film co-written/directed by George Lucas starring Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard, Paul Le Mat, Charles Martin Smith, Cindy Williams, Candy Clark, Mackenzie Phillips and Harrison Ford...
(both acknowledged in the DVD commentary for the episode).
In the Family Guy
Family Guy
Family Guy is an American animated television series created by Seth MacFarlane for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series centers on the Griffins, a dysfunctional family consisting of parents Peter and Lois; their children Meg, Chris, and Stewie; and their anthropomorphic pet dog Brian...
episode "Play It Again, Brian", Brian wins an award for an essay, and reads an excerpt that includes the lines: "Nothing from the first day I saw her, and nothing that has happened to me since, has ever been as frightening and as confusing, for no person I've ever known has ever done more to make me feel more sure, more insecure, more important and less significant." The excerpt is almost verbatim the conclusion of the narrator's opening monologue in Summer; later in that episode, Brian admits that he "ripped off" most of the essay from Summer of '42.
Remakes
In the years since the film's release, Warner Bros. has attempted to buy back Raucher's ten percent of the film as well as his rights to the story so it could be remade; Raucher has consistently declined. The 1988 film Stealing HomeStealing Home
Stealing Home is a 1988 movie, starring Mark Harmon, Jodie Foster, Jonathan Silverman, and Harold Ramis. The film is directed by Steven Kampmann and William Porter.-Plot summary:...
has numerous similarities to both Summer of '42 and Class of '44, with several incidents (most notably a subplot dealing with the premature death of the protagonist's father and the protagonist's response to it) appearing to have been directly lifted from Raucher's own life; Jennifer O'Neill stated in 2002 she believes "Home" was an attempted remake of "Summer."
There are also similarities between Summer of '42 and 2000's Malèna
Malèna
Malèna is a 2000 Italian romantic drama film starring Monica Bellucci and Giuseppe Sulfaro. It was directed and written by Giuseppe Tornatore from a story by Luciano Vincenzoni.-Plot:...
, another coming-of-age film set in the context of World War II, and starring Monica Bellucci
Monica Bellucci
Monica Anna Maria Bellucci is an Italian actress and fashion model.-Early life:Bellucci was born in Città di Castello, Umbria, Italy as the only child of Luigi Bellucci, who was born in the British protectorate of Zanzibar, East Pakistan...
and Giuseppe Sulfaro.
Off-Broadway musical
In 2001, Raucher consented to the film being made into an off Broadway musical play. He was on hand opening night, giving the cast a pep-talk which he concluded, "We've now done it every possible way — except go out and piss it in the snow!" The play met with positive critical and fan response, and was endorsed by Raucher himself, but the play was forced to close down in the aftermath of the 11 September attacksSeptember 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
. Nevertheless, the play was enough to spark interest in the film and book with a new generation, prompting Warner to re-issue the book (which had since gone out of print, along with all of Raucher's other works) for sale with Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
's online bookstore, and to restore the film and release it on DVD. The musical has since been performed across the country, at venues such as Kalliope Stage in Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Cleveland Heights, Ohio
Cleveland Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, a suburb of Cleveland. The city's population was 46,121 at the 2010 census.-Geography:Cleveland Heights is located at ....
in 2004 (directed by Paul Gurgol) and Mill Mountain Theatre
Mill Mountain Theatre
Mill Mountain Theatre has served for more than 40 years as a nationally recognized professional, regional performing arts theatre committed to producing the highest quality theatre in Southwest Virginia, actively promoting and developing new theatre works, strengthening the artistic influence in...
in Roanoke
Roanoke, Virginia
Roanoke is an independent city in the Mid-Atlantic U.S. state of Virginia and is the tenth-largest city in the Commonwealth. It is located in the Roanoke Valley of the Roanoke Region of Virginia. The population within the city limits was 97,032 as of 2010...
, Virginia
Virginia
The Commonwealth of Virginia , is a U.S. state on the Atlantic Coast of the Southern United States. Virginia is nicknamed the "Old Dominion" and sometimes the "Mother of Presidents" after the eight U.S. presidents born there...
, (directed by Jere Hodgin and choreographed by Bernard Monroe), and was subsequently recorded as a concert by the York Theatre Company in 2006.
Alternate sequel
In 2002, Jennifer O'Neill claimed to have obtained the rights to make a sequel to Summer of '42, based on a short story she wrote, which took place in an alternate reality in which Herman Raucher had a son and divorced his wife, went back to Nantucket in 1962 with a still-living Oscar Seltzer, and encountered Dorothy again and married her. As of 2006, this project — which O'Neill had hoped to produce with Lifetime television, has not been realized, and it is unknown whether O'Neill is still attempting to get it produced, or if Raucher (who technically has no say) consented to its production.External links
- Summer of '42 by Andy Williamson - The Wordslinger dated April 14, 2008