Summer of '42 (1971)

Funny how given the right musical score, narration, setting and actors...an adult having sex with a child is considered an 'awakening by some. Yes, I liked the movie years ago, but I know better now. Since the 70's, we better monitor such "splendor". The problem is that adults in the same situation can envision themselves in some kind of "Summer of 42", but all it is without the musical score and great feeling...is criminal activity.

A fantastic coming-of-age classic, I saw the first release in a theater in 1971 as a young teenager. It's now been resurrected thanks to TCM, where I saw it aired on Dec. 14, 2015. The film is as great as ever, and Dorothy + the haunting music still tug at my heart - even after 44 years! Jennifer O'Neill has an almost magical beauty that is simply beyond physical description. And like millions of other starry-eyed teen-age boys, Dorothy was absolutely my first love. One of my favorite movie scenes |of all time| is when she raises up on tiptoe to sweetly kiss Hermie's forehead. ANY boy who doesn't fall for Dorothy at exactly that moment will never really know love or romance.And even though I still watch it feeling that old familiar pain (and an unspoken kinship with Hermie): God Bless You Dorothy (and Jennifer) for helping me come of age with true love in my heart. I still have it.

Life was simpler. Love was stronger. And each day was a new adventure. I have the DVD and watch this movie at least once every 2 or 3 years. It never gets old, I always see new things or hear new dialog. No great message or political statement, just makes you feel good to be back in the day. The acting was great because you get so involved with the characters you lose the fact of who they really are. The situations are very real for those of us that lived during that period or even into the 50s and 60s. The dialog may seem a little corny, but that is the way we were when I grew up, clumsy and not very cool. The use of the wind throughout the movie gave it the beach feel that I used to get when I went to the beach on the Gulf coast, so the movie takes you away to a past that could have been.

In this 1971 Warner Brothers movie, set against the Nantucket Island backdrop of WWII, the nostalgia was great, strongly taking people back to the era of the early 40's. Nantucket was very appealing in this story, the coastal waters being very refreshing as well. As for the acting, Jennifer O'Neill portrayed so well the part of the lady with whom the young teenage boy became so taken. (Gary Grimes acted so well the part of the immature boy taken with her so strongly.) Jerry Houser was definitely an immature boy. But the storyline is not original. In their adolescent years, only a small number of boys do not find themselves fantasizing about some female they come upon and, as in this case, sometimes the women are too "old" for them; Grimes was a high school boy and O'Neill was somewhere in her middle 20's. In short, an adolescent boy meets an attractive older woman, he becomes strongly infatuated with her, and neither knows nor cares how the situation will resolve itself. The ending did and did not surprise me. To recapitulate, I was impressed with the nostalgia, the color and scenery were drawing, but the storyline was mediocre.