Monday 18 September 2023

Summer of '42 (1971 Robert Mulligan)

A wet film, with its simpering Michel Legrand piano theme, annoying teenagers and bland heroine. Hasn't held up well over time. (Funnily enough, the film they see at the cinema, Now Voyager, has withstood that test amazingly well.)

Gary Grimes falls for older Jennifer O'Neill on holiday. His annoying friends Jerry Houser and Oliver Conant tease him about it. Then her fiancee is killed in action and she takes the teenager to bed (as you do).

Mulligan is good with films about younger people, viz. To Kill a Mockingbird, The Man in the Moon. None of the boys' families are ever visible.

Robert Surtees' photography is very skilful but was perhaps responsible for a flood of diffused photography that became popular in 1970s culture.





I think I'd have to say Mr Surtees went too far in this one


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