Last Summer

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Last Summer
Last Summer - poster - 1969.jpg
Theatrical Poster
Directed by Frank Perry
Written by Eleanor Perry
Based onLast Summer
by Evan Hunter
Starring Barbara Hershey
Richard Thomas
Bruce Davison
Catherine Burns
CinematographyEnrique Bravo
Gerald Hirschfeld
Edited bySidney Katz
Marion Kraft
Music by John Simon
Production
company
Alsid Productions
Distributed by Allied Artists
Release date
  • June 19, 1969 (1969-06-19)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$780,000 [1]
Box office$3 million (rentals) [2]

Last Summer is a 1969 teen drama film directed by Frank Perry and written by his then-wife Eleanor Perry, based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Evan Hunter. It stars Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, and Catherine Burns. The film follows the exploits of four teenagers during a summer vacation on Fire Island, New York.

Contents

Released in the United States on June 19, 1969, Last Summer received generally positive reviews, with Burns garnering an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.

Plot

Dan and Peter, two youths vacationing on Fire Island, befriend a young woman named Sandy, who has found an injured seagull on a beach. While nursing the seagull back to health, the three friends spend time experimenting with alcohol, marijuana, and their own sexuality. The trio make the acquaintance of a slightly younger teenager, Rhoda, a shy, plump girl who confides in the others that her mother died in a drowning accident. One day, the boys find that Sandy has killed the seagull after it bit her. The three older friends pull a prank by arranging a dinner date with an older man, Anibal, through a computer dating service, getting him drunk, and then abandoning him to a group of local bullies, despite Rhoda's protests. Tension builds between Rhoda and the three older teens, and in the final sequence Dan, Peter, and Sandy pin down Rhoda near the beach as Dan rapes her. After the attack, the trio walk away, leaving Rhoda behind near a sand dune.

Cast

Production notes

Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison and Richard Thomas in a scene from Last Summer filmed on Fire Island. Perryhunter.jpg
Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison and Richard Thomas in a scene from Last Summer filmed on Fire Island.

Soundtrack

The film had a soundtrack album (Warner Bros.-Seven Arts WS 1791) of the score composed by John Simon and Collin Walcott. Heard on the soundtrack: John Simon (piano), Collin Walcott (sitar, tamboura), Aunt Mary's Transcendental Slip and Lurch Band (rock band), Cyrus Faryar (voice), Buddy Bruno (voice), Ray Draper (tuba, voice), Electric Meatball (rock band), Henry Diltz (banjo, voice), Bad Kharma Dan and the Bicycle Brothers (motorcycle gang). Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Richard Manuel of The Band played on the soundtrack as well, but were uncredited due because they recorded for another record label.

Reception

Last Summer received positive reviews. [6] [7] Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, writing:

From time to time you find yourself wondering if there will ever be a movie that understands life the way you've experienced it. There are good movies about other people's lives, but rarely a movie that recalls, if only for a scene or two, the sense and flavor of life the way you remember it.

Adolescence is a period that most people, I imagine, remember rather well. For the first time in your life important things were happening to you; you were growing up; what mattered to you made a difference...[On] top of the desire to be brave and honorable, there was also the compelling desire to be accepted, to be admitted to membership in that adolescent society defined only by those excluded from it...

Frank Perry's "Last Summer" is about exactly such years and days, about exactly that time in the life of four 15- or 16-year-old adolescents, and it is one of the finest, truest, most deeply felt movies in my experience. [8]

See also

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References

  1. "Frank Perry Discussion". The Criterion Collection . Retrieved August 22, 2016.
  2. "Big Rental Films of 1969", Variety , 7 January 1970, pg 15.
  3. Forsberg, Myra (March 29, 1987). "FILM; BARBARA HERSHEY: IN DEMAND". The New York Times.
  4. "Come Winter by Evan Hunter (1973)". Constable & Robinson.
  5. 1 2 King, Susan (January 18, 2012). 'Last Summer' to have rare screening from American Cinematheque, Los Angeles Times.
  6. Canby, Vincent (June 11, 1969). "Last Summer (1969) Screen: 'Last Summer':Cinema I Film Brings Trio of Newcomers". The New York Times .
  7. "Last Summer (1969)". FilmFanatic.org. Retrieved 14 May 2008.
  8. Ebert, Roger (August 15, 1969). "Last Summer (1969)". RogerEbert.com. Chicago Sun-Times.