A Summer Place (1959)

Director:

Delmer Daves

Writers:

Sloan Wilson (novel)
Delmer Daves (writer)

Release Date:

18 November 1959 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

A self-made businessman rekindles a romance with a former flame while their two teenage children begin a romance of their own with drastic consequences for both couples.

Plot Keywords:

Summer | Adultery | Marriage | Love | Beach

Awards:

3 wins & 1 nomination

Cast

Richard Egan	...	Ken Jorgenson
Dorothy McGuire	...	Sylvia Hunter
Sandra Dee	...	Molly Jorgenson
Arthur Kennedy	...	Bart Hunter
Troy Donahue	...	Johnny Hunter
Constance Ford	...	Helen Jorgenson
Beulah Bondi	...	Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble
Jack Richardson	...	Claude Andrews
Martin Eric	...	Todd Harper, Handyman at Pine Island Inn

Runtime:

130 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound Recording)

Certification:

UK:A (cut) | West Germany:12 (f) (cut version) | West Germany:18 (f) (original version) | Finland:K-16 | Sweden:15 | USA:Approved (certificate #19324)

Filming Locations:

Carmel-by-the-Sea, California, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

Richard Egan's (Ken) impassioned speech to his wife about her disgraceful bigotry was so powerful that an entire packed audience at Radio City Music Hall gave it an immediate standing ovation.

Goofs:

Continuity: When Molly is getting ready to go Christmas shopping with her mother, her mother begins to zip up the back of her dress. Molly breaks away and runs to bed to get letters, argues with her mother, still with her dress unzipped. When she runs to fireplace to burn the letters, her dress is zipped.

Quotes:

Bart Hunter: As soon as Molly is found - and I'm sure she will be - I suggest you vacate these rooms as swiftly as possible.
Helen Jorgenson: [incredulously] Don't tell me that you're on their side!
Bart Hunter: Let's merely say that I'm not on yours.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Batman (1989)

Soundtrack:

Liebestraum

Impossible to get that song outta your head!

Gorgeous-looking soap opera, with Sandra Dee swaying, swooning and suffering her way through role as young woman determined to do the deed with stodgy, windbreaker-wearing Troy Donahue. Their parents disapprove of course, that is until her father and his mother have an affair of their own! Surprisingly absorbing plot really lays on the melodrama, but so what? It's a roller-coaster ride of teen angst, romantic emotions gone too far, all blissfully filmed in beautiful color. Probably Donahue's best performance, although Dee continues her fight against a thick layer of phoniness that always seems to seep into her work (she's just not a natural, the way Connie Stevens or Tuesday Weld were). The picture is famously scored with Max Steiner's music which forever lives on oldies radio-stations, and will forever live in your head once you've heard it. It's quite lovely, but played ad nauseum. *** from ****