The Summer of 42 is one of those films I have always meant to watch and never got around too. When I used my Tivo to search for "summer" movies I saw that it was playing on TCM last Saturday night. With a push of a button I set the Tivo to record and now I had my Sunday movie ready for watching.
The Summer Of 42 is a nostalgic tale of a boy's first love and is told in a narrative remembrance style. The boy is Hermie (Gary Grimes) he is 15 and living on an island on Nantucket Island. It's summertime and he shares adventures with two buddies, Oscy (Jerry Houser) and Benjie (Oliver Conant). The boys spend their days walking the beach and thinking and talking about girls. Hermie is obsessed with one particular girl, a soldier's wife living in a remote beach house.
The movie tells the of the boys adventures learning about sex by taking a medical journal from Benjiie's house. Oscy teaches Hermie about condoms and convinces him to try to buy some from the local druggist. The boys double date some local girls where Oscy tries to go "all the way" but Hermie is barely interested in getting to first base, since his heart and mind is devoted to Dorothy (Jennifer O'Neill).
The film feels like it's being told by someone who remembers long ago events rather than from the boys point of view. Everything has an air of innocence and nostalgia about it. The scenes between Hermie and Dorothy are low key and lack intensity and then scenes in a drugstore and at the beach are the reverse, amped up for comic effect.
Aside from the fact that Dorothy's husband is a soldier and leaves to fight in the war, this coming of age story could have taken place any summer from 1942 to 1972. There is no reference to rationing, war bonds, or any other consequences of living during the war. In fact aside from the druggist and two brief glimpses of Dorothy's husband, there are no other adults in the movie. Even Hermie's mother is heard and not seen (voice work by Maureen Stapelton).
The film works because none of the actors are major stars. We are not distracted by seeing a familiar face playing one of the boys. If this movie had been made ten years later the studio would have required a star like Micheal J. Fox in the lead role.
Boys at that age will always be obsessed about sex, but I wonder how much times have changed the experience. In the movie the boys explorations are innocent and comical. What is it like for a teenager today? With a world obsessed with sex, the Internet a cornucopia of information and condoms handed out for free every where, I imagine the days of eagerly reading a medical manual for information are long gone.
It's interesting to note how times have changed for the film's subject matter. released in 1971 this film was both a critical and commercial hit without a hint of controversy. The Reader, a film that also dealt with an older woman and an adolescent boy having an affair, released in 2008, was met with criticism and cries of child abuse and child pornography.
At the Movie House rating ***
2 comments:
I saw this film for the first time the other night (seems like a few people did)..I still cannot get it out of my head. That automatically qualifies it for 4 stars. I am glad I did not sdee it when I was younger, I woul have fallen in love with Jennifer O'Neill just like Hermie
This movie couldn;t be made today because kids like this simply no longer exist..If they made the movie today, you would have three jerks hanging around not talking to one another and instead cell phoning other like idiots...in addition, they wouldn't go out and have adventure because 1) their mommy's wouldn't let them 2) they'd went to be inside being fed snacks and watching TV or video games and 3) if one of them was lucky enough to meet the Jennifer O'Neill character, they would call the "authorities" on her (damm fools)...I pity the jerks growing up in todays mommy run world. Though every time period has had its share of difficulties and hardship, never before have there been so many dumbasses reproduced as in todays times. These movies have an effect because in our hearts we know that the times they reflect are gone forever. I guarantee there has not been a movie made in this decade that will make people reflect back on the lost times of the 2000's, or even the 1990's for that matter.
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