Raucher's novelization of his screenplay of the same name was released prior to the film and became a runaway bestseller, to the point that audiences lost sight of the fact that the book was an adaptation of the film and not vice versa. Though a pop culture phenomenon in the first half of the 1970s, the novelization went out of print and slipped into obscurity throughout the next two decades until an off Broadway adaptation in 2001 brought it back into the public light and prompted Barnes & Noble to acquire the publishing rights to the book. The film was followed by a sequel, Class of '44, also written by Raucher, with lead actors Grimes, Houser, and Conant reprising their roles.
Plot
In the summer of 1942 on Nantucket, 15-year-old "Hermie" and his friends – jock Oscy and introverted nerd Benjie – are hanging out on the beach. They spot a young soldier carrying his new bride into a house and are struck by her beauty.
They continue spending afternoons on the beach, where their thoughts turn to sex. All of them are virgins: Oscy is obsessed with the act of sex, while Hermie develops romantic interest in the bride, whose husband he spots leaving the island on a water taxi one morning. Later that day, Hermie sees her outside the market struggling with grocery bags. He offers to aid her in carrying the bags home, which she accepts, and in this way, gets to meet her.
Meanwhile, Oscy and Hermie become convinced they know everything necessary to lose their virginity. They test this by going to the cinema and picking up a trio of high-school girls. Oscy stakes out Miriam, "giving" Hermie her less attractive friend, Aggie, and leaving Benjie with Gloria, a heavyset girl with dental braces. Frightened by the immediacy of sex, Benjie runs off. The other two girls initially refuse to go in without Benji's would-be date, but she says to go without her, then leaves herself. The war bride, who is also at the movies, sees Hermie in line and asks him if he can help her move some boxes that Thursday. During the film, Oscy attempts to put the moves on Miriam, eventually making out with her. Hermie succeeds with Aggie, who allows him to grope what he thinks is her breast; Oscy later points out that Hermie was fondling her arm.
On Thursday, Hermie helps the bride move boxes into her attic, and she thanks him with a kiss on the forehead. Later, in preparation for a marshmallow roast on the beach with Aggie and Miriam, Hermie goes to the drugstore and hilariously builds up the nerve to ask the druggist for condoms (or "rubbers," as they were known in the '40s). That night, Hermie roasts marshmallows with Aggie while Oscy has sex with Miriam behind the dune bushes. Oscy is doing so well, he comes up and asks Hermie for some of his condoms. Aggie, wondering what is going on, walks over to Oscy and Miriam, sees them having sex, and runs home, upset.
The next day, Hermie comes across the bride sitting outside her house, writing to her husband. Hermie offers to keep her company that night, and she accepts. Hermie says she never got her name, and she replies her name is Dorothy. Later, Hermie runs into Oscy, who relates that Miriam's appendix burst and she has been rushed to the mainland. When Oscy asks about Dorothy and makes crude comments, Hermie rebukes him for his crassness.
When Hermie gets to Dorothy’s house, he finds it strangely dark and quiet. He sees a bottle of whiskey, several cigarette butts in an ashtray, a record player spinning at the end of a record, and a telegram on the table. Dorothy's husband is dead, his plane shot down over France. Dorothy comes out of her bedroom with tears on her face, says hello, and "I don't look very good, do I?" Hermie replies with, "I think you do." Dorothy then walks into the kitchen and begins washing dishes. Hermie says to her, "I'm sorry." Dorothy stops what she's doing, turns to face Hermie, turns on the record player, and invites him to dance with her. They dance, both with tears on their faces. They kiss and embrace, then move to the bedroom where she draws him into bed and gently makes love with him. Afterward, Dorothy withdraws to the porch. Hermie approaches her, and she says, "Good night, Hermie." He responds with "Good night," then leaves, his last image of Dorothy being of her leaning against the railing as she smokes a cigarette and stares into the night.
The next day, Hermie and Oscy reconcile, with Oscy informing Hermie that Miriam will recover. Hermie goes back to Dorothy's house only to learn she has left the island. She has left behind a letter for Hermie wherein she expresses her hopes that Hermie understands she must go home, assures him she will never forget him, and hopes he will be spared from life's senseless tragedies.
In voiceover, the adult Hermie says, "I was never to see her again. Nor was I ever to learn what became of her. We were different then. Kids were different. It took us longer to understand the things we felt. Life is made up of small comings and goings. And for everything we take with us, there is something that we leave behind. In the summer of '42, we raided the Coast Guard station four times, we saw five movies and had nine days of rain. Benjie broke his watch. Oscy gave up the harmonica. And in a very special way, I lost Hermie...forever."
Director Robert Mulligan provided uncredited voiceover narration as the older Hermie.[4]Maureen Stapleton provided the voice for Sophie, Hermie's mother,[4] and film stuntman Walter Scott appears uncredited as Dorothy's husband.
Production
Basis and development
The film (and subsequent novel) were memoirs written by Herman Raucher; they detailed the events in his life over the course of the summer he spent on Nantucket Island in 1942 when he was fourteen years old.[5] Originally, the film was meant to be a tribute to his friend Oscar "Oscy" Seltzer, an Army medic killed in the Korean War.[5][6] Seltzer was shot dead on a battlefield in Korea while tending to a wounded man; this happened on Raucher's birthday, and consequently, Raucher has not celebrated a birthday since. While writing the screenplay, Raucher realized that despite growing up with Oscy and having bonded with him through their formative years, the two had never really had any meaningful conversations or known one another on a more personal level.[5]
Instead, Raucher decided to focus on the first major adult experience of his life, that of falling in love for the first time. The woman (named Dorothy, like her screen counterpart) was a fellow vacationer on the island whom the 14-year-old Raucher had befriended one day when he helped her carry groceries home; he became a friend of her and her husband and helped her with chores after her husband was called to fight in World War II. On the night memorialized in the film, Raucher randomly came to visit her, unaware his arrival was just minutes after she received notification of her husband's death. She was confused and upset, had been drinking heavily, and repeatedly called Raucher by her husband's name. Although both ultimately disrobed, contrary to popular perception, sexual intercourse did not occur. Raucher admitted this in a 2002 interview, saying it was mostly holding, but in the movie "We let you think what you want."[5]
The next morning, Raucher discovered that she had left the island, leaving behind a note for him (which is read at the end of the film and reproduced in the book). He never saw her again; his last "encounter" with her, recounted on an episode of The Mike Douglas Show, came after the film's release in 1971, when she was one of over a dozen women who wrote letters to Raucher claiming to be "his" Dorothy.[7] Raucher recognized the "real" Dorothy's handwriting, and she confirmed her identity by making references to certain events only she could have known about.[7] She told Raucher that she had lived for years with the guilt that she had potentially traumatized him and ruined his life. She told Raucher that she was glad he turned out all right, and that they had best not re-visit the past.[5][7]
In a 2002 Scripps Treasure Coast Publishing interview, Raucher lamented never hearing from her again and expressed his hope that she was still alive.[5] Raucher's novelization of the screenplay, with the dedication, "To those I love, past and present," serves more as the tribute to Seltzer that he had intended the film to be, with the focus of the book being more on the two boys' relationship than Raucher's relationship with Dorothy. Consequently, the book also mentions Seltzer's death, which is absent from the film adaptation.[8]
An error in both the book and film centers on the movie Now, Voyager. They go to a movie theater to see the movie in the "summer of '42". However, the film was released nationally in the U.S. on October 31, 1942, with an October 22 premiere in New York City, so it would have been impossible to see the movie that summer.
Raucher wrote the film script in the 1950s during his tenure as a television writer, but "couldn't give it away."[5] In the 1960s, he met Robert Mulligan, best known for directing To Kill a Mockingbird. Raucher showed Mulligan the script, and Mulligan took it to Warner Bros., where Mulligan argued the film could be shot for the relatively low price of $1 million, and Warner approved it.[5] They had so little faith in the film becoming a box-office success, though, they shied from paying Raucher outright for the script, instead promising him ten percent of the gross.[5]
Casting
When casting for the role of Dorothy, Warner Bros. declined to audition any actresses younger than the age of 30; Jennifer O'Neill's agent, who had developed a fondness for the script, convinced the studio to audition his client, who was only 22 at the time. O'Neill auditioned for the role, albeit hesitantly, not wanting to perform any nude scenes. O'Neill got the role and Mulligan agreed to find a way to make the film work without blatant nudity.[9]
Filming
Though set on the east coast, Summer of '42 was filmed in Northern California, largely in Fort Bragg and Mendocino.[10] Shooting took place over eight weeks, during which O'Neill was sequestered from the three boys cast as "The Terrible Trio," in order to ensure that they did not become close and ruin the sense of awkwardness and distance that their characters felt towards Dorothy. Production ran smoothly, finishing on schedule.[5]
After production, Warner Bros., still wary about the film being only a minor success, asked Raucher to adapt his script into a book.[5] Raucher wrote it in three weeks, and Warner Bros. released it prior to the film to build interest in the story.[5] The book quickly became a national bestseller, so that when trailers premiered in theaters, the film was billed as being "based on the national bestseller," despite the film having been completed first.[5][8] Ultimately, the book became one of the best-selling novels of the first half of the 1970s, requiring 23 reprints between 1971 and 1974 to keep up with customer demand.[8]
Release
Box office
The film became a blockbuster upon its release, grossing over $32 million, making it one of the most successful films of 1971, with an expense-to-profit ratio of 1:32;[11] beyond that, it is estimated video rentals and purchases in the United States since the 1980s have produced an additional $20.5 million.[12] On this point, Raucher said in May 2002 that his ten percent of the gross, in addition to royalties from book sales, "has paid bills ever since."[5]
Critical response
Summer of '42 received positive reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 79% approval rating based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6.73/10.[13]
In The Guardian, Derek Malcolm wrote Summer of '42 "is one of those rare films you can't help liking simply for its aspirations, which are so honest and open-minded."[14] He concluded, "You could, I suppose, view it as a deeply romantic film full of a specifically American yearning for the purity of pubescence. You could also view it more simply as an ingratiating comedy about latent sexuality. Either way you can't doubt its charm and sheer professionalism, even if the pace is slack at times."[14]
Vincent Canby of The New York Times expressed that Hermie's encounter with Dorothy is "a good deal more common in novels and screenplays (and in the Hermie-like fantasies of middle-aged writers) than in real life", but praised the film's "reticent quality of its romanticism" and its actors.[15] Canby concluded the "foreground is mostly accurate, in which sexual panic and fist fights and nose bleeds are treated with the great comic respect they deserve."[16]
Some critics were critical of the film's nostalgic framework. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said the film is undercut by its rose-tinted nostalgic tone, writing, "Nostalgia is used as a distancing device -- to keep us safely insulated from the boy's immediate grief, love, and passion."[16] Ebert noted the film is "beautifully produced and photographed", but lacked more of a perspective on Hermie's experiences and how it changed him.[16]Variety wrote, "The emotional and sexual awakening of teenagers is a dramatic staple. Robert Mulligan’s Summer of '42 has a large amount of charm and tenderness; it also has little dramatic economy and much eye-exhausting photography which translates to forced and artificial emphasis on a strungout story."[17]
The film's soundtrack consists almost entirely of compositions by Michel Legrand, many of which are variants upon "The Summer Knows", the film's theme. Lyrics are by Marilyn and Alan Bergman. Because the complete score runs just under 17 minutes, only the first and eighth tracks on the album are from Summer of '42; the rest of the music is taken from Legrand's score for 1969's The Picasso Summer.[26]
In addition to Legrand's scoring, the film also features the song "Hold Tight" by The Andrews Sisters and the theme from Now, Voyager. On the Billboard 200, it debuted on November 9, 1971 and peaked at #52 on November 20, 1971.[26]
Summer of '42: Original Motion Picture Score
No.
Title
Length
1.
"Summer of '42 (Main Theme)"
3:51
2.
"Summer Song"
4:21
3.
"The Bacchanal"
1:48
4.
"Lonely Two"
2:04
5.
"The Danger"
2:13
6.
"Montage: But Not Picasso / Full Awakening"
3:32
7.
"High I.Q"
2:11
8.
"The Summer Knows"
1:47
9.
"The Entrance to Reality"
3:04
10.
"La Guerre"
3:15
11.
"Los Manos de Muerto"
3:29
12.
"Awakening Awareness"
2:26
13.
"And All the Time"
1:43
Total length:
35:44
In 2014 Intrada Records released Summer of '42 and The Picasso Summer on a limited-edition two-disc set, with the entire score for the former and the original album presentation of the latter (dubbed "The Picasso Suite") on disc 1, and the complete score for The Picasso Summer on disc 2.[28]
Warner Bros. Publications released a sheet music folio, Summer of '42 & Other Hits of the Forties, which contains the movie theme and 34 other unrelated songs.[29]
The 1973 song "Summer (The First Time)" by Bobby Goldsboro has almost exactly the same subject and apparent setting, although there is no direct credited link. Bryan Adams has, however, credited the film as being a partial inspiration for his 1985 hit "Summer of '69".[30]
Garth Brooks' 1993 hit "That Summer" features a similar story of a coming-of-age male in a romance with an older female.[31]
In the years since the film's release, Warner Bros. has attempted to buy back Raucher's ten percent of the film as well as his rights to the story so it could be remade; Raucher has consistently declined.[5] The 1988 film Stealing Home has numerous similarities to both Summer of '42 and Class of '44, with several incidents (most notably a subplot dealing with the premature death of the protagonist's father and the protagonist's response to it) appearing to have been directly lifted from Raucher's own life; Jennifer O'Neill stated in 2002 she believes Home was an attempted remake of Summer.[42]
Filmmaker Stanley Kubrick cited it as one of his favorite films of all time, and featured it in a scene in The Shining (1980), during which the character of Wendy Torrance watches the film on television.[43] Director Quentin Tarantino is also an admirer of it, and declared it "one of the best movies of the ’70s."[43][44]
In 1973, the film was followed by Class of '44, a slice-of-life film made up of vignettes about Herman Raucher and Oscar Seltzer's experiences in college. Class of '44 involves the boys facing army service in the last year of World War II. The only crew member from Summer of '42 to return to the project was Raucher himself, who wrote the script; a new director and composer were brought in to replace Mulligan and Legrand. Of the four principal cast members of Summer of '42, only Jerry Houser and Gary Grimes returned for prominent roles, with Oliver Conant making two brief appearances totaling less than two minutes of screen time. Jennifer O'Neill did not appear in the film at all, nor was the character of Dorothy mentioned.
The film met with poor critical reviews; the only three reviews available at Rotten Tomatoes are resoundingly negative,[45][46] with Channel 4 calling it "a big disappointment,"[47] and The New York Times stating "The only things worth attention in 'Class of '44' are the period details," and "'Class of '44' seems less like a movie than 95 minutes of animated wallpaper."[48]
Off-Broadway musical
In 2001, Raucher consented to the film being made into an off Broadway musical play.[5] He was on hand opening night, giving the cast a pep talk which he concluded, "We've now done it every possible way – except go out and piss it in the snow!"[49] The play met with positive critical and fan response, and was endorsed by Raucher himself, but the play was forced to close down in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.[5] Nevertheless, the play was enough to spark interest in the film and book with a new generation, prompting Warner to re-issue the book (which had since gone out of print, along with all of Raucher's other works) for sale with Barnes & Noble's online bookstore, and to restore the film and release it on DVD.[5] The musical has since been performed across the country, at venues such as Kalliope Stage in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 2004 (directed by Paul Gurgol) and Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Virginia, (directed by Jere Hodgin and choreographed by Bernard Monroe), and was subsequently recorded as a concert by the York Theatre Company in 2006.
Alternative sequel
In 2002, O'Neill claimed to have obtained the rights to make a sequel to Summer of '42, based on a short story she wrote. This story took place in an alternate reality where Herman Raucher had a son and divorced his wife, went back to Nantucket in 1962 with a still-living Oscar Seltzer, encountered Dorothy again and married her.[9] As of 2017, this project – which O'Neill had hoped to produce with Lifetime television[50] – had not been realized. It is unknown if O'Neill is still attempting to get it produced or if Raucher consented to its production.
Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc. is an American film and entertainment studio headquartered at the Warner Bros. Studios complex in Burbank, California, and a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD). Founded in 1923 by four brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, and Jack Warner, the company established itself as a leader in the American film industry before diversifying into animation, television, and video games, and is one of the "Big Five" major American film studios, as well as a member of the Motion Picture Association (MPA).
Michel Jean Legrand was a French musical composer, arranger, conductor, jazz pianist, and singer. Legrand was a prolific composer, having written over 200 film and television scores, in addition to many songs. His scores for two of the films of French New Wave director Jacques Demy, The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (1964) and The Young Girls of Rochefort (1967), earned Legrand his first Academy Award nominations. Legrand won his first Oscar for the song "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair (1968), and additional Oscars for Summer of '42 (1971) and Barbra Streisand's Yentl (1983).
Jennifer O'Neill is a Brazilian-born American author, model and former actress. Born in Brazil, and moving to the United States as an infant, she first came to prominence as a teenage model, as well as for her spokesperson work for CoverGirl cosmetics, which began in 1963 and spanned three decades. She made her feature film debut in the comedy film For Love of Ivy (1968), followed by a lead role in Howard Hawks's Western film Rio Lobo (1970).
Toto is a fictional dog in L. Frank Baum's Oz series of children's books, and works derived from them. He was originally a small terrier drawn by W. W. Denslow for the first edition of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900). He reappears in later Oz books and in numerous adaptations, such as The Wizard of Oz (1939) and The Wiz (1978).
Herman Raucher was an American author and screenwriter who penned the autobiographical screenplay and novel Summer of '42, which became one of the highest-grossing films and one of the best selling novels of the 1970s. Raucher began his writing career during the Golden Age of Television, when he moonlighted as a scriptwriter while working for a Madison Avenue advertising agency. He effectively retired from writing in the 1980s after a number of projects failed to come to fruition, though his books remain in print and a remake of one of his films, Sweet November, was produced in 2001.
Robert Patrick Mulligan was an American director and producer. He is best known for his sensitive dramas, including To Kill a Mockingbird (1962), Summer of '42 (1971), The Other (1972), Same Time, Next Year (1978), and The Man in the Moon (1991). He was also known for his extensive collaborations with producer Alan J. Pakula in the 1960s.
Stealing Home is a 1988 American coming of age romantic drama film written and directed by Steven Kampmann and William Porter. The film stars Mark Harmon, Blair Brown, Jonathan Silverman, Harold Ramis, William McNamara, and Jodie Foster. The movie focuses on a failed baseball player, Billy Wyatt, who discovers that his childhood sweetheart, Katie Chandler, has died by suicide. Billy must confront the past via reminiscence and nostalgia, while also dealing with grief, as he embarks on a journey to fulfill one of Katie's last wishes; that he spread her ashes.
Valentine is a 2001 slasher film directed by Jamie Blanks and starring Denise Richards, David Boreanaz, Marley Shelton, Jessica Capshaw, and Katherine Heigl. Based on the novel of the same title by Tom Savage, the film follows a group of women in San Francisco who are stalked by a killer wearing a Cupid mask in the days leading up to Valentine's Day.
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"That Old Feeling" is a popular song about nostalgia written by Sammy Fain, with lyrics by Lew Brown. It was published in 1937.
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Mary Louise Comingore, known professionally as Dorothy Comingore, was an American film actress. She starred as Susan Alexander Kane in Citizen Kane (1941), the critically acclaimed debut film of Orson Welles. In earlier films she was credited as Linda Winters, and she had appeared on the stage as Kay Winters. Her career ended when she was caught in the Hollywood blacklist. She declined to answer questions when she was called before the House Un-American Activities Committee in 1952.
Class of '44 is a 1973 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman Raucher. Directed by Paul Bogart, it is structured as a sequel to the 1971 film Summer of '42 which recounted the events in the earlier portion of Raucher's memoirs.
Sweet November is a 1968 American romantic comedy film written by Herman Raucher and starring Sandy Dennis, Anthony Newley and Theodore Bikel. The film originally had been written as a stage play by Raucher, but before it was performed, Universal Pictures got wind of the project and paid Raucher $100,000 to stop work on the play and adapt it as a screenplay.
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Summer of '42 is a novel written by Herman Raucher, based upon his screenplay and personal experience.
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