A Summer Place

Wow, Sandra Dee made two big soap opera connections in 1959, starring opposite of two of Hollywood's biggest female stars, Lana Turner in "Imitation of Life" and then "A Summer Place" with Dorothy McGuire. Pure soap on a rope in both of these films.....was in my first year of high school when this film opened and every girl I ever knew of in school and my neighborhood was hooked on this movie. Tell any girl you liked back then you would take them to see this movie, some of them 2-3 times and you had a sure date! Troy Donahue who had a bit role in "Imitation of Life" with Dee is the full blown boyfriend in this soaper. Good performances by the venerable actors Richard Egan, Dorothy Mcguire (in another never ending mother role), Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford. How about Ford, Sandra Dee's evil, overbearing, sinister mother who wouldn't say a kind work about even Mother Theresa? By the middle of the film she has given the entire audience chills. Arthur Kennedy gave a solid performance as a drunk, down and out misfit father who offers a very sordid outlook on life for the young lovers, Dee and Donahue. Dorothy McGuire who appeared a little too old to me to be in love with the younger Egan gives a soaper-doaper performance extraordinare as the swindled mother who longs for her old boyfriend Egan. Then there is that never ending Max Steiner/Percy Faith theme song from the movie blurting out every few seconds.....no one in their 50s or 60s today could ever forget how many thousands of times they heard that song on the old am radios. Donahue became a soap opera lothario thanks to this film, making other soap suds in "Parrish" with Connie Stevens, and reuniting with McGuire in "Susan Slade" again with Stevens as the love interest. So sad to hear last year of the death of Dee and a couple of years earlier Donahue....... Dorothy McGuire a couple of years ago too. This film must have been the inspiration for any number of television soapers that have stayed on TV over the years.

This was an OK movie. The big draw was Troy Donahue in his first starring film role. A fine looking young Sandra Dee was also a big draw, although not as big as Donahue. I remember that I was a lad in high school when the film was released and all of the girls raved about the fantastic looking blonde wonder boy, Troy Donahue. Whenever one of the guys started acting a little too cool, he was brought quickly back to reality with the question, "Who do you think you are? Troy Donahue?" The Theme song of the movie was played by Percy Faith and his orchestra and was called simply "Theme from a Summer Place" and was on the pop charts for months. Guys loved the song as much as girls because it had a slow and lilting rhythm that even the most awkward oaf could dance to and the girls just loved to be held tightly when it was playing. The scenery was delightful as the film was shot at the seashore where there was lots of water, sand and lush greenery. The plot was fairly comprehensive and involved affairs and marital deceit compounded by the love that developed between Troy and Sandra's characters. All in all not a bad movie, certainly worth the 45 cents admission that I paid to see it in 1959.

This movie has only one thing on its naughty little mind - sex. There are those who are getting it, those who aren't getting it but want it, and those who aren't getting it and are pretending they don't want it. One character in the latter category bandies words like "slut" and "harlot" about freely, but she didn't fool me. The four adults have managed to screw up their relationships, but the two very cute teenagers, played by Sandra Dee and Troy Donohue, look as if they'll get by okay if they just follow their hearts. I can't pretend that this is a great movie, but I had fun watching it. That's because the dialogue is way over the top and the actors deliver it with relish. In particular, Constance Ford (as Dee's evil, neurotic mom) and Arthur Kennedy (as Donohue's drunken sot of a dad) get all the best verbal poison arrows, and some of them are quite funny (sometimes unintentionally so). At one point Dee asks Donohue straight out: "Have you been bad with other girls?" That's the temper of the screenplay - everybody says precisely what's on their minds. I have to give the film credit for depicting the utter helplessness of adults in trying to manage their children's lives. Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire (as lovely as ever) try to behave with stoic dignity which is hard to do when you're sneaking out to the boathouse for a midnight rendezvous and maybe a little you-know-what. The Technicolor location photography is very beautiful, with California doubling, I hear, for New England. And I enjoyed the costumes (okay, okay, I also enjoyed what was in them).

I saw A Summer Place for the first time very recently, and one thing that really struck me was just how gutsy Constance Ford's portrayal of Helen Jorgenson was. Not many actors can pull off a character who has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Most actors would pressure the director and writer into giving their characters at least a small bit of sympathy, but Ford was excellent at playing someone thoroughly bad.

I'm sure she got static for her portrayal when she visited the supermarket or whatever in her daily life.

I'm not kidding, Bruno Ganz' portrayal of Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang/Downfall was more sympathetic and likable than Constance's portrayal of Helen.

This is one of the first films to deal with young love, and is by all means one of the best! The story centers primarily on Molly and Johnny, two teenagers who are deeply, madly, and wildly in love, but their parents just won't have it. It seems their parents are willing to do just about everything to keep them apart. Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue are both magnificent as the star-crossed lovers. All right, so Troy seems a little stilted at times, but Sandra is perfection as the beautiful young girl who constantly finds herself at odds with her eagerness to do the right thing, and fulfilling her love for Donahue. Dee hits all the right marks as the emotionally troubled girl, delivering what is possibly her all-time best performance. It was certainly a breakthrough for the gifted young star who proved that she could do more than play smiling, giggling, relentlessly perky teens. It's a magnificent achievement, and anyone who has ever doubted Sandra's acting abilities are in for a big surprise when they see her in this film. Other acting honors go to Richard Egan and Constance Ford as Dee's unhappy parents, and the always marvellous Dorothy McGuire as Egan's old flame. That's not to say that the actors don't stumble at times with some supremely silly dialogue, but their star power and great talent rides rather smoothly over the film's bumpy spots, making this film an enjoyable classic of the teenage-angst genre. It's also one of the most stylishly done films in the genre. The great director Delmer Daves gives the film his full attention, and it's a sleek, colorful production that ranks right up there with other films with similarly-related themes like REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS for example. It all may seem rather dated, but truthfully, this film is just as enjoyable now as it was when it was first released in 1959, and that title theme is still hauntingly beautiful and memorable.