A SUMMER PLACE is one of the most ridiculous movies ever made, with platitudes that were hopelessly old-fashioned even in 1959.
I can't believe that someone was actually PAID to write that insipid dialogue! I can imagine the actors trying to control their laughter when they spoke their lines. Credit to them, especially to Constance Ford.
The only saving grace of this film is the title theme by Max Steiner.
It's very dated, but this was a hot ticket back in 1959 and these attitudes were real.
No birth control pills, you had to ask the pharmacist for condoms because they were kept behind the counter, and you always looked over your shoulder for people spying on you in small towns. I feel bad for anyone who came of age then.
The Fabio Principle: Puffy shirts look best on men who look even better without them.
Yeah, I know, but the term "harlot" went out with the Roman Empire.
It's amazing that Constance Ford was able to utter that term with a straight face.
Also, what gave those kids the right to judge their parents' actions? Were they so blind as not to see how miserable Ken and Sylvia were with their mates--a drunk and a sanctimonious bitch?
They should have been pleased that his long-suffering mother and her long-suffering father finally found happiness with each other.
But, no-o-o! It seems that both Johnny and Molly inherited the detestable traits of the parents they hated!
There was an interesting article in the NY Times a few weeks ago: "From Marilyn Monroe to Sarah Palin: The Dumbing Down of American Culture".
IMHO, this movie greatly contributed to this "dumbing down".
I have to disagree.
I don't know what your parents' relationship was like; mine separated when I was 7. Divorce never feels good to kids even when it's for the right reasons. It's a disruption in their lives, it makes them trust the world a little less, and in those days it was gossip fodder at the worst possible time in their lives. We can look at this with the experience and wisdom of adulthood and see that these divorces were the right thing, but most teens aren't going to see it that way when it's their parents.
I've even known a few adults who were on their own and even married who couldn't handle their parents' divorces.
As for what these kids could see and not see, this was a time when parents kept a lot of stuff from their kids and some of the kids went into denial about what they did know was going on around them.
This movie was very gutsy for its day. For Ken and Sylvia to support the kids' decision was unusual. Most fathers in his position would either send the daughter to Puerto Rico for an abortion or send her away to a distant relative to have the baby and give it up for adoption.
The Fabio Principle: Puffy shirts look best on men who look even better without them.
Growing up, my family could politely be called "dysfunctional".
My mother had frequent bitch-a-thons, and my father would just tune her out. There was NEVER any sincere affection between my parents.
My brother and I suffered emotional scarring that lasts to this day.
In retrospect, we would have been better off if our parents HAD divorced, but this was the '50's and 60's, and we lived in a jerkwater town where everybody knew everybody else's business, and as you said, there would have been gossip. And appearances must be maintained at all costs!
A SUMMER PLACE may have been daring in its day, but it has dated badly, and today is more laughable than gutsy.
And I have a bad feeling that Johnny and Molly would end up just like Bart and Helen!
It was dated and I expected it to be. Most films like this are. But it must have been somewhat provocative at the time and I give them some credit for that even though the dialogue was awful at times.
"Peyton Place" was a much better film --though also dated-- on a number of levels.
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You are right. Anyone who looks into an old film expecting it to measure up to today's values is being self-delusive. It was over-the top dialogue, even for its time, but the values it shows were the real thing.
"The value of an idea has nothing to do with the honesty of the man expressing it."--Oscar Wilde
your loss. this is totally enjoyable if you're in the right frame of mind.
"Who put the pineapple juice in my pineapple juice?"
Forget the "it's dated" stuff, that can be said of virtually any film.
The film itself isn't bad: it's got a decent plot and good performances by the adult cast (particularly the superb Arthur Kennedy). What hurts this picture is the utterly asinine dialogue by Delmer Daves, mostly what he wrote for Dee and Donahue. (Daves also did a pretty poor job of directing as well.) The relationships between the adults are done well enough -- at least those aspects are entertaining -- but Daves hadn't a clue as to how real teenagers spoke and behaved, even in 1959. Both "kids" talked and acted like petulant, cutesy 12-year-olds. Even their forays into sexual banter are written pretty immaturely.
The kids' smug, aloof attitude toward their decent parents (Egan and McGuire) is also a bad script conception. Why do they behave so vindictively toward these loving parents, when it's the other ones who've treated them so badly? It only makes them seem even more immature and unattractive.
What this film needed was better-drawn, more fully realized characters for the teens. It's Sandra Dee (who was a good actress but is almost sunk here by the stupidity of her character) and Troy Donahue (whose sullen, humorless, self-righteous personality never changed and only emphasized his limitations as an actor) who undermine A Summer Place. But while they share some of the blame for the silly way in which their characters act, the bulk of the blame goes to writer/director Daves. And Daves only got worse: has anyone seen such gems of his as Parrish and Susan Slade? At least A Summer Place has good acting by the adults, a decent story, beautiful music and scenery. If only Daves had had any sense about actual teens (and a better, looser actor than Donahue), and the talent to write those characters realistically, this movie could have been really good. As it is, it's only all right, between the winces.
I've seen it but I can't remember how it ends, could someone just tell me the ending? Thanks
shareSpoilers!
Johnny [Troy Donahue] gets Molly [Sandra Dee] pregnant, and unable to face their remarried parents (Ken [Richard Egan] and Sylvia [Dorothy McGuire]), they run away to get his father's (Bart [Arthur Kennedy]) blessing to get married. Bart is on the island, drunk, waiting for the Coast Guard to transport him to a veteran's hospital in Boston since he's now hopelessly ill from alcoholism. He tells them he hopes they don't get married now, but they run off again anyway. After unsuccessfully trying to find a JP who will marry them, they go back to Ken's and Sylvia's house, where the parents tell them that everything will be all right if they can find understanding, love and their sense of humor. The final scene has Johnny and Molly returning to Pine Island, married, where they'll live and, presumably, have their child and run the Inn. The end.
hobnob, the attitude toward the "good parents" bothered me, too. At least the kids didn't run into the arms of the bad ones. Molly had to live with her mother, but clearly her mother continued to be horrible and controlling. Also, court made Johnny's father send him to a good school. I think the reason the kids turned on Sylvia and Ken was because they were the ones who had the affair. To teens as young as they were, Ken and Sylvia seemed to be in the wrong. Loved the scene in Molly's room when her Dad visited Molly.
shareYes, I suppose at that time the courts would view two good people who divorced their spouses to marry one another as somehow "unfit", while overlooking trifles like child abuse and alcoholism.
At least Bart (Arthur Kennedy) wasn't a cruel, manipulative s.o.b., just a man who'd sunk into alcohol but retained some sense of dignity, decency and even occasional good judgment (like advising them not to get married). Remember what he told Molly's harridan of a mother, when she said to him, "Don't tell me you're on their side," and he replied, "Let's just say, madam, that I'm not on yours." Johnny was at least much better off with Ken than Molly was with her mother.
I suppose I can understand the kids' resentment about Ken and Sylvia, as it was an awkward situation. But given the alternatives they're still behaving rather petulantly and self-righteously (especially Johnny). But I guess at the end they've learned their lesson, too.
But honestly, they both seem way too old -- particularly Johnny -- to be parceled out in a custody fight to one parent or the other, like seven-year-olds. Did the judge have them come into his chambers to see which parent they ran to first?
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OP, what is it silly?
Because there is not violence, things blowing up? Graphic sex?
Those days were a time when there were a few morals left in America- before the Libs made a cesspool of it!
WHAT THE MSM HIDES:
http://theobamafile.com/index.htm
I've seen this movie. And I know the censors were VERY strict in those days. This film seems pretty racy for the time. Even by today's standards, it would probably be an R movie. If there were ratings in 1959, this might have been rated X (for adults only).
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