A Summer Place (film)

A Summer Place is a 1959 American romantic drama film based on Sloan Wilson's 1958 novel of the same name, about teenage lovers from different classes who get back together 20 years later, and then must deal with the passionate love affair of their own teenage children by previous marriages. Delmer Daves directed the movie, which stars Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire as a couple, and Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue as their respective children. The film contains a memorable instrumental theme composed by Max Steiner, which spent nine weeks at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1960.
Alcoholic Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy), his long-suffering wife Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire) and their teenage son Johnny (Troy Donahue) operate a crumbling inn on Pine Island off the Maine coast. The inn was previously Bart's elegant family mansion in an exclusive resort, but as his family fortunes have dwindled, the Hunters are forced to rent rooms to paying guests. Bart receives a reservation request from an old acquaintance, Ken Jorgenson (Richard Egan), who was a lowly lifeguard on the island twenty years ago but is now a millionaire research chemist. Ken wants to bring his wife and daughter to the island for the summer. Bart suggests that Ken is just coming to lord his new wealth over Bart, who is no longer rich. Bart wants to refuse the reservation, but Sylvia insists that he accept because they badly need the money, even going so far as to move themselves into the small guest house so their own master bedroom suite can be rented to Ken and his family.
Ken arrives with his wife Helen (Constance Ford) and teenage daughter Molly (Sandra Dee). Helen and Ken have an unhappy marriage, sleep in separate bedrooms and frequently argue, including over proper behavior standards for their daughter. Helen is a prude who disapproves of Molly's developing figure and interest in boys, particularly Johnny, who is also attracted to Molly. Ken, who is much more relaxed and permissive, tells his daughter that her lustful desires are not shameful. Helen tries, unsuccessfully, to put on airs and impress the upper-class residents of the island, while Ken is not interested in pretense and is even happy to talk with older people who remember him from when he worked as a lifeguard.
As it turns out, Ken and Sylvia were teenaged lovers twenty years previously. It soon becomes apparent that they still love each other, and that Ken returned to Pine Island in hopes of seeing Sylvia again. They had broken up because Ken was a poor college student while Bart was the son of a rich, established family, so Sylvia married Bart, and Ken, after seeing Sylvia's wedding announcement in the newspaper, married Helen. Both marriages were unhappy, but Ken and Sylvia stayed in them because of their love for their respective children, Molly and Johnny. Ken and Sylvia find themselves drawn to each other again and begin secretly meeting every night. They are soon spotted by the island's night watchman, who informs Helen. Helen initially keeps quiet, on her mother's advice, planning to catch them in the act to ensure a large divorce settlement.
Ken goes on a weekend business trip, during which time Molly and Johnny, with Ken's permission, go sailing around the island. Their boat capsizes in rough water, stranding them on the beach overnight. The Coast Guard rescues them the next day. Helen is suspicious that the teens had sex on the beach, although they deny it. Helen sends for a doctor to forcibly examine Molly, finding she is still a virgin. Horrified, Molly runs away and sees Johnny, who threatens to kill Helen if she hurts Molly again. Helen contacts law enforcement, and then in a fit of anger reveals Sylvia and Ken's affair in front of Bart, Ken, Sylvia and Johnny. Bart reveals he has long known about Sylvia's love for Ken and offers to forgive her, but she cannot go back. The Hunters and Jorgensons each go through an acrimonious public divorce and the teens are sent to boarding schools several states apart. Molly and Johnny are angry at Ken and Sylvia and stop speaking to them, becoming increasingly dependent on each other for emotional support, despite Helen's constant interference and criticism of Molly's morals.
Ken and Sylvia eventually marry and move into a Frank Lloyd Wright beach house. They talk Molly and Johnny into visiting them there, to which they agree largely because it will give them a chance to be together away from Helen, who is unable to prevent the visit due to a court order. During their visit, Molly and Johnny have sex (off camera). Ken and Sylvia suspect that the teens are sleeping together and are concerned about the possible ill effects, but in view of their own past history, feel they cannot order Molly and Johnny to stop. Soon after, Molly discovers she is pregnant and runs away with Johnny, planning to get married. They seek Bart's blessing, but he drunkenly tries to talk them out of marriage, later calling Helen to let her know what happened. The local justice of the peace suspects that they are under legal age to marry and turns them down. In desperation, Molly and Johnny go to the house of Ken and Sylvia, who are supportive. In the end, happy Johnny and Molly, just married, return to Pine Island for their honeymoon.
The film was shot in Pacific Grove and around the Monterey Peninsula. Sloan Wilson wrote the first screenplay, which covered the 22-year span of the novel. Delmer Daves focused the new draft on one year. Daves said:
Some exterior and interior scenes involving Ken and Sylvia's beach house were filmed at Frank Lloyd Wright's Mrs. Clinton Walker House, built in 1948. In the film, Sylvia tells Molly that Wright designed the house, ostensibly located on the East Coast near the movie's "Pine Island" location (since Molly and Johnny drive from Pine Island to the house after being sent away by the justice of the peace). In reality, Walker House is located on the beach side of Scenic Road on Carmel Bay in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. The real house has only one level, although in the movie, the house is depicted as if it has a lower level at the same level as the beach. Additional scenes were filmed at the Honeymoon Cottage located at Mission Ranch in Carmel.
The movie became popular after its release, but had a mixed critical reception. Harrison's Reports, an industry newsletter for independent movie theater owners, defined it "money in the bank at the box office," "a well-made bit of entertainment," and "sleek and svelte in the best tradition of popular films," but warned exhibitors the film was "devoted almost exclusively to the most popular cinema topic of the day—sex." Howard Thompson of The New York Times called it "one of the most laboriously and garishly sex-scented movies in years" with "Max Steiner's music hammering away at each sexual nuance like a pile driver". On Rotten Tomatoes, A Summer Place holds an approval rating of 83% based on six reviews, with an average rating of 6.00/10.
The 1960 instrumental hit "Theme from A Summer Place", composed by Max Steiner, was used in the film as a secondary musical theme (not the main title theme) for scenes featuring Molly and Johnny. The version used in the film was recorded by Hugo Winterhalter. It was later arranged and recorded by Percy Faith and performed by his orchestra. In 1960, the Percy Faith version reached number one on the Billboard Hot 100 chart for nine consecutive weeks, a record at that time. The theme has been covered in instrumental or vocal versions by numerous other artists, including The Lettermen, Andy Williams, The Chordettes, Cliff Richard, Julie London, Billy Vaughn, Joanie Sommers, and The Ventures, and has been featured in many other films and television programs. Percy Faith would re-record the piece twice; first in 1969 and later in 1976.
Troy Donahue co-starred in The Crowded Sky, another Warner Brothers film released about ten months after A Summer Place. In a restaurant scene between Donahue's character and co-star Efrem Zimbalist Jr., the popular "Theme from A Summer Place" is heard on the restaurant sound system.
In the 1971 film The Omega Man, the lead character Robert Neville played by Charlton Heston, listens to the film soundtrack main theme in his car on an 8-track tape cartridge during the precredit opening sequence.
The lyrics of the song "Look At Me, I'm Sandra Dee" from the musical Grease are in part specifically about the events in this movie.
The film is part of a plot point in the Barry Levinson 1982 film Diner. Set in 1959, the character "Boogie" and several of his friends attend a movie theater showing of A Summer Place, where Boogie plays a sexual prank on his date as Molly and Johnny kiss onscreen.
The 1985 Canadian film My American Cousin, set in 1959, plays the song a number of times.
Jasper Beardsley sang the theme song with the fictional lyrics "It's the theme, from A Summer Place..." while auditioning for the Be Sharps in the 1993 The Simpsons episode Homer's Barbershop Quartet.
The 'I washed my hair for you scene' can be seen on the 1990s show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman in the first-season episode: "Honeymoon in Metropolis". Lois is spending the weekend at the Lexor hotel in town for relaxation but is getting bored with the love stories being shown on television.
The 1997 thriller-comedy Con Air features the song during a scene in which a character played by Dave Chappelle is thrown out of an airplane.
The 2001 version of Ocean's Eleven contains the theme from A Summer Place during the initial scene between Daniel Ocean (George Clooney) and Tess (Julia Roberts).
The theme song is used in a comedic scene of two separate seductions in National Lampoon's 1978 blockbuster comedy, Animal House.
The theme song features in a comedic scene of The Sopranos in which Tony Soprano outs Bobby Baccalieri for mistaking Nostradamus and Notre Dame for being the same thing.
The TV show Buffy the Vampire Slayer used the theme song in its seventh and last season where the female protagonists all fall in love with the boy named R.J because of a love charm.
The theme appeared in the 2024 TV show Fallout based on the popular video game franchise. The similarly comedic scene features the protagonist Lucy MacClean and Maximus talking about sex.