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Herman Raucher, whose Oscar-nominated Summer of ’42 screenplay became one of Hollywood’s best-loved coming-of-age tales, has died of natural causes at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Ct. He was 95.

His December 28 death was announced by daughter Jenny Raucher, who was by his side when he passed.

Subsequently adapted by Raucher into an international best-selling novel, 1971’s Summer of ’42 was nominated for four Academy Awards including Best Original Screenplay. It told the nostalgic and bittersweet story of teenager Hermie — played by Gary Grimes and based on Raucher himself — who, during a summertime vacation on Nantucket Island, becomes infatuated with a beautiful (and soon grieving) older woman (Jennifer O’Neill) whose husband has gone off to fight in World War II.

The film, directed by Robert Mulligan (To Kill a Mockingbird), was a critical success and a major hit for Warner Bros. Michel Legrand’s score won an Oscar and quickly became...

Herman Raucher, the best-selling author and screenwriter who earned an Oscar nomination for the coming-of-age classic Summer of ’42 and wrote the script for the thought-provoking Watermelon Man, has died. He was 95.

Raucher died Thursday of natural causes at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Connecticut, his daughter Jenny Raucher told The Hollywood Reporter.

Raucher, who started out in live television, penned the screenplays for two Anthony Newley-starring films: Sweet November (1968), directed by Robert Ellis Miller and also featuring Sandy Dennis, and Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness? (1969), featuring Joan Collins.

He also was given inspiration from Bobbie Gentry’s 1967 hit song to write the screenplay to Ode to Billy Joe (1976), a love story that starred Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor and was helmed by Max Baer Jr.

With the Robert Mulligan-directed Summer of ’42 (1971) in postproduction, someone came up with the idea of Raucher writing a...

TV’s 1979 Titanic movie comes to Blu in two versions. We liked it when new but didn’t care for the cut-down theatrical version that hit DVD in 2002. Kino’s disc completes a set of various film versions of the infamous 1912 disaster, and allows us the chance for a Titanic ‘battle of the bands’ — we’ll rate them from several criteria. The filmed-in-England production has a nicely-chosen soap opera cast: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews.

S.O.S. Titanic

Blu-ray

Kl Studio Classics

1979 / Color / 1:66 widescreen / 102 + 144 min. / Street Date October 13, 2020 / available through Kino Lorber / 24.95

Starring: David Janssen, Cloris Leachman, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, Anna Quayle, David Warner, Timothy Spall, Susan Saint James, Harry Andrews, Ed Bishop, Jerry Hauser, Aubrey Morris, Norman Rossington, Catherine Byrne, Warren Clarke, Madge Ryan.

Cinematography: Christopher Challis

Film Editor: Rusty Coppleman

Original Music: Howard Blake

Special effects: Wally Veevers,...

Danny Goldman, known as the memorable med student who questions Gene Wilder in the 1974 comedy classic Young Frankenstein, has died. He was 80.

Goldman, a New York native with a long career in entertainment, died on Sunday, his longtime agent and friend Doug Ely announced on Facebook.

“It’s with great sadness that I must tell you that Danny Goldman has passed away. He passed peacefully at home today amongst family and friends, after having suffered a couple of strokes around New Years,” Ely wrote. “I’ve known Danny since 1980 when I first became an agent and he 1st started casting on his own.

Over the last few decades – thanks in part to movies and TV shows like Dazed and Confused, Boogie Nights, Anchorman and HBO's Vinyl – there’s been a pronounced pop cultural tendency to reduce the 1970s to little more than a fabulous parade of campy signifiers like mirrored disco balls, brightly-painted muscle cars, platform shoes, bellbottomed jeans, tube tops, Afro hairdos, pornstaches and piles of cocaine.

It's an understandable impulse, of course. (Who doesn't love Afros or piles of cocaine?) But taking such a superficial approach to the seventies means glossing over the grittier,...