ChikPapa Very disappointed :(

Dorathen Better Late Then Never

TeenzTen An action-packed slog

Tyreece Hulme One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

billpappas-1 I just watched an old Perry Mason ans was pleasantly surprised to see Constance Ford. So, I looked her up and thought I'd see the reviews for A Summer Place.I was in the 8th grade when it first played. Looking back, those teen angst movies with sex as the conflict were laughable back then. Even as an 8th grader, they seemed conservative compared to what us kids talked about at the time which was much racier.There were movies like Susan Slade, Parrish, etc. that are cringe inducing but so entertaining for their dated takes on young love and young sex.Now, Constance Ford is irresistible; a poor man's Joan Crawford during her Queen Bee and Harriet Craig years. She could be so scary just by giving a look of disdain. I wish I could have met her to see what she was really like because she had that tough, intolerant schtick down and half the time seemed like she was having hot flashes to boot. Even in black and white, it looked like her face would get flushed when she was losing her temper. But, she could steal a scene so effortlessly even if she didn't say a word.I don't know what movie or TV show I saw Ford in where she was in a vicious argument with another woman or young girl where she took a fireplace poker and swung it and stuck it in the mantel. She was good. Scarier than Dirty Harry.Poor Troy Donahue couldn't act to save his life. He was a male bimbo. I had a crush on Sandra Dee even though she could be really annoying at times but she had her good moments.Dorothy McGuire was quite a beauty and a good actress but low key and not showy.All in all, a fun and entertaining movie with a window to a different time is some of our lives. I know it was a drama but, really, it still has me grinning throughout. And, that's good.I checked spoiler just in case Ford swinging a fireplace poker was from this movie. I can't recall for sure. She probably could have done that in many of her films with the characters she played.

Wuchak I was 54 years late, but I finally got around to watching this well-known soap opera. Released in 1959, the story has to do with a couple (Arthur Kennedy and Dorothy McGuire) who own a vacation inn off the coast of Maine. It's a beautiful old mansion but they're barely above poverty and Kennedy's a sad alcoholic. That's when an affluent couple visits for the summer (Richard Egan and Constance Ford). Egan was a lifeguard on the island when he was a teen and knows the couple from his youth. He and McGuire dated back then and Egan wants to reignite the flame, likely because his wife is utterly frigid. On top of this, both couples have teens (Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee) and they strike up a secret romance as well. There are drastic consequences to these liaisons.What separates this film from a television soap opera is the location shooting. I should point out, however, that it was shot on the coast of California, not Maine (Pacific Grove and Carmel-by-the-Sea)."A Summer Place" is a worthwhile film because, watching it, is like going back in time where mores were more reserved and much less hedonistic. A girl wasn't expected to have sex until she married and, if she did, it was scandalous. It was the same thing with adultery, which still is scandalous, but even more so back then. It's also interesting to see how people dressed while lounging around the house, all dressed-up. Despite the differing mores, people are still human and face the same human needs and temptations that people do in any time period.The social dynamics are also interesting: It's wrong for Richard and Dorothy to commit adultery, but who can blame them in the face of Constance' cold legalism and Arthur's pathetic alcoholism? Constance seethingly condemns Dorothy as a monstrous adulterous, but she's oblivious to her own loveless arrogance. Which is the greater transgression? Would Richard have strayed in the first place if Constance wasn't such an impassive ice queen? And without Richard's advances Dorothy would've never been tempted to cheat on Arthur. O what a tangled web we weave.The first half is great for the reasons cited above, including the gorgeous locations, but the second half moves away from the island and focuses on the relationship of Donahue and Dee, which simply isn't as interesting as the adult entanglements. Thankfully, the story picks up in the final act and the core message rings loud and clear: love conquers all (and I'm not talking' bout mere physical lust).FINAL WORD: The film runs 130 minutes and is overlong by about 10-20 minutes, but it's an interesting period piece with some fascinating gems to extract, not to mention the beautiful coastal locations.GRADE: B

rpvanderlinden This movie has only one thing on its naughty little mind - sex. There are those who are getting it, those who aren't getting it but want it, and those who aren't getting it and are pretending they don't want it. One character in the latter category bandies words like "slut" and "harlot" about freely, but she didn't fool me. The four adults have managed to screw up their relationships, but the two very cute teenagers, played by Sandra Dee and Troy Donohue, look as if they'll get by okay if they just follow their hearts. I can't pretend that this is a great movie, but I had fun watching it. That's because the dialogue is way over the top and the actors deliver it with relish. In particular, Constance Ford (as Dee's evil, neurotic mom) and Arthur Kennedy (as Donohue's drunken sot of a dad) get all the best verbal poison arrows, and some of them are quite funny (sometimes unintentionally so). At one point Dee asks Donohue straight out: "Have you been bad with other girls?" That's the temper of the screenplay - everybody says precisely what's on their minds. I have to give the film credit for depicting the utter helplessness of adults in trying to manage their children's lives. Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire (as lovely as ever) try to behave with stoic dignity which is hard to do when you're sneaking out to the boathouse for a midnight rendezvous and maybe a little you-know-what. The Technicolor location photography is very beautiful, with California doubling, I hear, for New England. And I enjoyed the costumes (okay, okay, I also enjoyed what was in them).

dougdoepke It's easy to mock this big tub of soap suds. What with the two baby-faced innocents and a ton of Dee's pouty close-ups, it's a generous slice of white bread, 50's style. But beneath all the teen-age angst and adult philandering lies a surprisingly subversive message for that uptight decade. Because, once things get sorted out over the 130 minutes, we find out a number of social rules have not only been broken, but their violation justified. For example: the storyline implies that teen sex may be okay as long as the kids truly love each other— a violation of the teenage abstinence rule; that unwed teen pregnancy need not be punished— a challenge to Production Code insistence; and that adultery may be okay if the spouses are in impossible marriages—a further erosion of that seemingly sacred institution. The overall idea, is that no matter what, true love forgives all.Now, this may seem pretty tame stuff 50-years later in our anything-goes era. But I guarantee, it was cutting edge Hollywood at the time, even if the messages were buried in a load of glossy make-believe. Responding to the slick package were lines of teens stretching around the block, and it wasn't just because of the catchy title tune. Then too, those folks curious about the breakdown of 50's conformity and the youth rebellion of the 60's should include this highly unexpected entry in their thinking.At the same time, writer-director Daves seems an unlikely source for both the message and the genre, with his background in adult Westerns, such as the classic 3:10 to Yuma (1957). Here, he's very shrewd in his casting of Hollywood veterans. There's the likably masculine Egan (Ken) and the saintly maternal McGuire (Sylvia). Between them, they make infidelity seem not only permissible, but required. Then there's the affably tipsy Kennedy (Bart) and the assertively witchy Ford (Helen). Between them, they make cuckolding seem not only permissible, but also required. Taken together, it's almost perfect type casting. My only reservation is with Ford who seems too aggressively mean to make her marriage believable.Daves is also a sneaky filmmaker since he wraps the controversial subtext in irresistible gloss. Few pictures of the era are as gorgeous as this one, and I'm not just talking about Donahue (who's even prettier than his co-star). Those Technicolor shots of the Carmel coastline are mesmerizing, along with the Lloyd Wright cliffside house. For visual contrast, compare this production with the thematically similar but dour-looking Blue Denim of the same year and also with two blonde innocents-- Brandon deWilde and Carol Lynley. The black&white Denim is the more earnest of the two, yet lacks the candy-box covering that giftwraps this production. Thus, for all its seriousness, Denim lacked the same teen drawing power and impact.Anyway, as mentioned, mocking the film is easy, what with all the soapsuds and two Photoplay leads. However, I salute Daves for knowing how to get his humane message across to a popular audience, despite providing grist for generations of smirking critics. Happily, Daves proves here that there was more to his filmmaking than a fast gun, Glenn Ford, and a slow train to Yuma.