A Summer Place
Studio: Warner Bros. Distribution
Rated: NOT RATED
Release Date: 2007-02-06
Cast: Richard Egan, Dorothy McGuire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy, Troy Donahue
Director: Delmer Daves
WorkNameSort: Summer Place, A
More people remember Max Steiner’s immensely popular score to A Summer Place than they do the film, and for good reason. Sinuous cinematography and overly affected performances guide this soap opera of gag-worthy romantic mush. At times it achieves unintentional camp hilarity, as when an inflamed Richard Egan prattles off a list of loveless wife Constance Ford’s myriad of ethnic prejudices. But mostly, A Summer Place uses its story of young lovers’ sexual awakenings as the basis for a didactic social problem film: the effect of two sets of parents’ divorces on their offspring-turned-lovers (Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue). The movie is very much a product of its time, historically relevant only for its daring foregrounding of nubile sexuality and Ford’s deep-freeze performance as Dee’s backward, tyrannical mother. Director Delmer Daves fared better at noir (Dark Passage) and war movies (Destination Tokyo). And Steiner’s hit song is repeated ad nauseam, in countless variations, so that it loses its dramatic impact while eating into your brain like a termite.
This article appears in Feb 14-20, 2007.