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17 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
One of the first and best teen love stories ever!!!!!, 26 September 2000
Author: verna55 from cincinnati, ohio

This is one of the first films to deal with young love, and is by all means one of the best! The story centers primarily on Molly and Johnny, two teenagers who are deeply, madly, and wildly in love, but their parents just won't have it. It seems their parents are willing to do just about everything to keep them apart. Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue are both magnificent as the star-crossed lovers. All right, so Troy seems a little stilted at times, but Sandra is perfection as the beautiful young girl who constantly finds herself at odds with her eagerness to do the right thing, and fulfilling her love for Donahue. Dee hits all the right marks as the emotionally troubled girl, delivering what is possibly her all-time best performance. It was certainly a breakthrough for the gifted young star who proved that she could do more than play smiling, giggling, relentlessly perky teens. It's a magnificent achievement, and anyone who has ever doubted Sandra's acting abilities are in for a big surprise when they see her in this film. Other acting honors go to Richard Egan and Constance Ford as Dee's unhappy parents, and the always marvellous Dorothy McGuire as Egan's old flame. That's not to say that the actors don't stumble at times with some supremely silly dialogue, but their star power and great talent rides rather smoothly over the film's bumpy spots, making this film an enjoyable classic of the teenage-angst genre. It's also one of the most stylishly done films in the genre. The great director Delmer Daves gives the film his full attention, and it's a sleek, colorful production that ranks right up there with other films with similarly-related themes like REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE and SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS for example. It all may seem rather dated, but truthfully, this film is just as enjoyable now as it was when it was first released in 1959, and that title theme is still hauntingly beautiful and memorable.

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10 out of 10 people found the following comment useful :-
Romance For All The Family ?, 11 November 2009

Author: jpdoherty from Ireland

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

A cannily created slice of American romantic hokum is probably the best description that can be afforded this Warner Bros. 1959 production - A SUMMER PLACE! From the best selling novel by Sloan Wilson this story about the emerging sexual awareness in the young and the sexual re-awakenings in their seniors was written, produced and directed with a certain flair - it has to be said - by Delmer Daves. As with much of Daves' movies it was richly photographed in gorgeous Technicolor, this time, by the great Harry Stradling on beautiful locations in and around the New England coast. Arriving for a vacation to Pine Island comes Molly - the attractive adolescent who instantly has the reciprocal hots for young Johnny (teen idol Troy Donahue), while her father (Richard Egan) takes up where he left off years before when he had a deep romantic entanglement with Johnny's mother (Dorothy Maguire) before she married alcoholic hotelier Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy turning in the best performance in the movie).

The picture's outspoken attitude to sex caused something of a sensation to audiences in the sixties. Now fifty years later the sexual machinations depicted all seem pretty mild. Nonetheless in its day the film amassed a vast teen following and today is remembered with some fondness mostly because of Max Steiner's theme music. The Young Love Theme the veteran Warner composer wrote for the movie (at 71 years of age) became a smash hit virtually overnight in the sixties when a cover version was recorded by the Percy Faith orchestra! This sunny little tune is still played and is just as catchy today as it was fifty years ago.

The versatile Steiner - fresh from scoring Warner's big cop epic "The FBI Story" and Daves' seminal Gary Cooper western "The Hanging Tree" - could cross over subject and thematic boundaries with little difficulty and score such things as this potent drama of teenage and adult love with equal dexterity. Besides the infectious Young Love Theme there is the picture's most dominant cue - The Adult Love Theme. This piece goes all the way back to 1932 when Steiner first wrote it for the Gary Cooper/Helen Hayes movie "A Farewell To Arms". But producer David O'Selznick rejected it at the time and the composer kept it on ice until he saw use for it 27 years later as the Main Theme for A SUMMER PLACE. And a blessing it is too for it works so wonderfully well in the later film! First heard over the titles - as the tide crashes against the rocks on the Maine Coast - it is given lush renditions throughout the picture. A hum-inducing, warm and thoroughly engaging piece with elegant harmonic stresses it is one of the composer's loveliest melodic inspirations. Its broadest and most ravishing versions are heard in the scenes with the older lovers (Egan and Maguire) for their nightly trysts in the boathouse ("I'm not pretty for you anymore - and I'm sorry about that"). Other lovely cues are the sprightly motif for Johnny and, scored for harp and strings, the tender music for scenes with Molly and her father. Also for scenes around the New England coast Steiner reuses another old piece of his - the sea cue he originally wrote for the 1946 Bette Davis picture "A Stolan Life".

With A SUMMER PLACE writer producer director Daves hit upon a winning formula for this kind of glossy and attractive looking motion picture. He went on to successfully write, produce and direct three similar type films and all starring Troy Donahoe - "Parrish" (1961), "Susan Slade" (1961), "Rome Adventure" (1962) and, one other without Donahue, "Spencer's Mountain" (1963). These four pictures also had exceptional scores by the exceptional Max Steiner.

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14 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
Nostalgic, irresistibly sweet teen schmaltz - for the very young at heart., 13 September 2001

Author: gbrumburgh-1 (gbrumburgh@pacbell.net) from Los Angeles, California

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** Sometimes you just can't help yourself. Every once in awhile heady art-house pieces or complex psychological thrillers just won't satisfy the ol' entertainment palate. At those times, I cave in to my craving for sweet, adulterated romantic tripe, look around to make sure nobody's around, and quickly escape back to the days of my own cotton-candy innocence. 1959's "A Summer Place" is the perfect baby-boomer fodder, summer or winter, to recapture those simple, glorious, carefree years when "being bad" for me was maybe throwing a snowball at a passing car or feigning a stomach ache to skip school, while "being bad" for my older teenage brother was getting to go a bit too far with his main squeeze! In Douglas Sirk's glossy, slightly lurid drama, you not only get to revel in a pre-Camelot box-office romance with two of the hottest "teen" stars ever "being bad", you get Max Steiner's luxuriant score, complete with Percy Faith's gorgeous theme song (#1 on the Billboard charts for 9 weeks - the single most successful instrumental pop hit ever!) to keep you in that sentimental "being bad" mood. And just leave it to old Max to know how to underscore adultery and underage coitus and make it all still seem so pure and unblemished.

A vacationing couple with their daughter spend the summer at a remote resort island off the coast of Maine where old love is rekindled and new love blossoms -- both with traumatic results. What this shallow but engagingly cloying beach-towel romance has going for it is its young lovers -- the pristine princess of the screen at the time, the inimitable Sandra Dee, and Hollywood's new flavor of the month, the staid, butter-haired dreamboat, Troy Donahue, as her flawed Prince Charming. Wow...what a couple. Utter perfection they are. And there's nothing more gratifying than seeing two perfect specimens drowning in misery to make you feel good again about your own woeful prom years. By the way, Dee was 17 and Donahue 23 at the time this was released. They, more than anyone, knew how to simulate the strains of aching young love.

On the other side of this love parallel, the always reliable thespians Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire, as Sandy's dad and Troy's mom, denote the older, worldly-wise love set. Meeting again (not quite by happenstance), they reignite the smouldering passion they once shared, fueling it with moonlit encounters. Usually the epitome of candor and responsibility, they throw all caution to the wind in a last ditch effort to fulfill true love's destiny, foreshadowing just what might happen to Dee and Donahue.

As always in these cases, surrounding our two hot, hormonal couples are two necessary evils. Troy and mom Dorothy have their hands full as caretakers for their besotted husband/father Arthur Kennedy, a witty, extremely cynical one-time mariner who, drink in hand, enjoys expounding on the futility of life and love. But the real fun and chief fomenter here is Sandy's conniving, shrewish, abusive mother, played for all it's worth by Constance (Ada on "Another World") Ford. Ms Ford is the gal you love to hate in this picture and she becomes the big selling point in keeping the emotional boiling pot really boiling. Her Maleficent-like glare and ever-controlled smirk will chill you to the bone. Better yet, her frigid, emasculating, vindictive attitudes toward sex and marriage is enough to make a man join the foreign legion. I would venture to guess that the saying "colder than a witch's tit" came from somebody who saw Ford in this wonderfully frosty role.

The most palpable, mouth-watering Dee/Donahue encounter comes at the climactic late-night clinch at the lighthouse (they told their elders they were going to see "King Kong") where the innocent-eyed Dee is about to give in and "be bad." As Troy slowly goes in for the touchdown, Sandy coyly whispers the synopsis of the ape movie to cover their tracks when they get home. God, why couldn't us guys have killer turn-on dialogue like that going in for a touchdown?

Ah, well, suffice it to say that about every situation is wonderfully over-baked and most of the script sanitized to the point of campy hilarity. Why, you'll need a whole roll of extra-strength Bounty just to absorb all of the juicy tidbits that spill out of the mouths of this talented cast. But for every glorious good girl vs. naughty girl confrontation between mother and daughter, you'll have to endure the incessant sermonizing on the magnitude of love from Egan and McGuire. It's still worth it.

Despite the fact that Sandra Dee and the late Troy Donahue's saccharine appeal quickly soured in later years (both of them would suffer from chronic alcoholism), their chemistry here is undeniable and their legacies untarnished. They will go down in the Hollywood annals as the envy of every young couple ever in love and lust.

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9 out of 11 people found the following comment useful :-
There's a reason this one's a classic, 16 February 2005

Author: dwr246 from United States

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Although it's dated, naive, and more than occasionally melodramatic, this film is still a classic with a message that has a certain timelessness to it. It also boasts gorgeous cinematography, and excellent performances from Richard Egan, Constance Ford, and especially Dorothy McGuire and Sandra Dee.

The plot, which is somewhat convoluted, is basically this: Twenty years before the beginning of the movie, Ken (Egan), a struggling college student, takes a summer job as a lifeguard at a resort island off the coast of Maine. While there, he meets and falls in love with Sylvia (McGuire), the daughter of a family staying on the island. Because he has no money, and no social standing, her parents decide against the match, and the two are forced to separate, each going off to an unhappy marriage. Ken weds Helen, the epitome of a frigid wife (played to perfection by Ford), so much so that you wonder how on earth she let him touch her long enough to create their daughter, Molly (Dee). Sylvia has fared little better, marrying Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy), a likable lush. They have a son, Johnny (a painfully wooden Troy Donahue), who, it turns out, is about the same age as Molly. Twenty years have brought a sort of reversal of fortunes to the two families, as Ken is now a self made millionaire, while Bart's family has so little money that they are forced to stay on the island year round. Ken has decided that a vacation is long overdue, and writes to Sylvia to see if his family can stay with hers on the island for the summer. Sylvia and Bart agree to this. Molly and Johnny develop an instant affection for each other, much to the chagrin of Molly's mother, while Ken and Sylvia's reunion rekindles their romance, with tragic consequences for all.

While the issues of teen sexuality and adultery are hardly shocking to today's audiences, this was pretty daring in 1959, and the film handles them in a forthright way, only occasionally lapsing into melodrama or preaching. The focus on virginity seems especially old fashioned to a modern audience, and gives the film an unintended humorous aspect.

Among the leads, the acting is uniformly strong except for Troy Donahue, whose performance is stilted and unsatisfying. Richard Egan manages to infuse enough warmth into his character that you are willing to forgive his sermonizing. Particularly touching is his portrayal of a father whose love and concern for his daughter knows no limits. Arthur Kennedy does a good job of making his drunken character human and sympathetic. Constance Ford zealously plays Helen with such menace and malice that you really enjoy the zingers thrown at her (Sylvia's "You seem to have an infinite capacity for hurt.", the doctor's "Mrs. Jorgenson, you're being less than no help at all," and Bart's response to Helen's "Don't tell me you're on their side!" with "Let's just say I'm not on yours."). Sandra Dee's doe-eyed innocence works beautifully in her portrayal of a young woman learning a few of life's lessons before she should. And Dorothy McGuire is charming as Sylvia, giving us a character we can't help liking even when she falls from grace.

The film accurately portrays the attitudes of its time, which may make it less accessible to viewers who weren't around then. In spite of that, you find yourself caring about these characters, and their predicaments.

All, in this is a highly enjoyable film, and well worth watching, especially if you're yearning to return to "a simpler time."

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10 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
a Summer Place, 17 January 2006
Author: mhrabovsky1-1 from michigan

Wow, Sandra Dee made two big soap opera connections in 1959, starring opposite of two of Hollywood's biggest female stars, Lana Turner in "Imitation of Life" and then "A Summer Place" with Dorothy McGuire. Pure soap on a rope in both of these films.....was in my first year of high school when this film opened and every girl I ever knew of in school and my neighborhood was hooked on this movie. Tell any girl you liked back then you would take them to see this movie, some of them 2-3 times and you had a sure date! Troy Donahue who had a bit role in "Imitation of Life" with Dee is the full blown boyfriend in this soaper. Good performances by the venerable actors Richard Egan, Dorothy Mcguire (in another never ending mother role), Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford. How about Ford, Sandra Dee's evil, overbearing, sinister mother who wouldn't say a kind work about even Mother Theresa? By the middle of the film she has given the entire audience chills. Arthur Kennedy gave a solid performance as a drunk, down and out misfit father who offers a very sordid outlook on life for the young lovers, Dee and Donahue. Dorothy McGuire who appeared a little too old to me to be in love with the younger Egan gives a soaper-doaper performance extraordinare as the swindled mother who longs for her old boyfriend Egan. Then there is that never ending Max Steiner/Percy Faith theme song from the movie blurting out every few seconds.....no one in their 50s or 60s today could ever forget how many thousands of times they heard that song on the old am radios. Donahue became a soap opera lothario thanks to this film, making other soap suds in "Parrish" with Connie Stevens, and reuniting with McGuire in "Susan Slade" again with Stevens as the love interest. So sad to hear last year of the death of Dee and a couple of years earlier Donahue....... Dorothy McGuire a couple of years ago too. This film must have been the inspiration for any number of television soapers that have stayed on TV over the years.

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10 out of 14 people found the following comment useful :-
Get Thee To DVD At Once!, 20 December 2004

Author: Roseofsharon969 (Roseofsharon979@live.com) from Canada

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

DVD please? I saw this movie when it aired on A&E, and it captivated me as a child, and still does as an adult. The theme song is great, and I still find myself listening to it!!! I became a fan of Sandra Dee's after I saw her in "Gidget" and "Imitation Of Life" and I thought her performance was so real and heart-wrenching. Constance Ford, as her bitchy, controlling mother Helen, gives a strong portrayal of a bitter, frigid, unhappy woman who takes her anguish out on everyone around her, even her daughter. (She really gives Mommie Dearest a run for her money). The scene where she forces Molly to submit to a pelvic exam after she and lover-boy Johnny (the late Troy Donahue) have an accident on the beach (the boat capsizes) is horrible and makes the viewer grimace. The fact that the doctor was old and gross looking, and began to unbutton Molly's blouse without her consent, as she screamed, "Oh please, no, I want my father! I've been a good girl! I haven't done anything wrong!!" makes it uncomfortable, but it also makes you despise Ford's character, as I'm sure that was the intention. Richard Egan as Molly's father Ken, is so handsome and gentle at times (he was equally effective in Walt Disney's "Pollyanna" as Dr. Chilton) is a man who is trapped in a loveless marriage who finds and falls in love again with Dorothy McGuire, as Sylvia, his first love, who also happens to be the mother of Molly's boyfriend, Johnny!!! One of Egan's best lines is as he and Helen are having an explosive argument. Ken finishes off his end by saying, "Why must you insist on making sex itself a filthy word!" Arthur Kennedy, as Johnny's drunken father Bart was one of the actor's best later performances. The conflict between the two couples and the predicament that follows (Molly becomes pregnant by Johnny) was considered racy for its day, but considering how little is shown, you have to wonder what all the fuss was about!!! (Of course, the "King Kong" reference could bear some debate on that note). The argument between Molly and her mother at the beginning of the movie, sums up the times and also, in a way, the relationships between mothers and daughters. Molly: "Daddy, do I have to?" Ken: "Do you have to what?" Molly: "Wear this middy blouse to shore like a twelve-year-old! And she says I have to wear this armor-padded bra and a girdle! This thing even hurts, and I couldn't squeeze into this girdle with dynamite!"

It appears to be a soapy melodrama, but it really is a touching piece of nostalgia. Let's hope a DVD release is in the works!!! We all need to get away to "A Summer Place"!!!!!!!!

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11 out of 16 people found the following comment useful :-
Impossible to get that song outta your head!, 3 September 2001

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Gorgeous-looking soap opera, with Sandra Dee swaying, swooning and suffering her way through role as young woman determined to do the deed with stodgy, windbreaker-wearing Troy Donahue. Their parents disapprove of course, that is until her father and his mother have an affair of their own! Surprisingly absorbing plot really lays on the melodrama, but so what? It's a roller-coaster ride of teen angst, romantic emotions gone too far, all blissfully filmed in beautiful color. Probably Donahue's best performance, although Dee continues her fight against a thick layer of phoniness that always seems to seep into her work (she's just not a natural, the way Connie Stevens or Tuesday Weld were). The picture is famously scored with Max Steiner's music which forever lives on oldies radio-stations, and will forever live in your head once you've heard it. It's quite lovely, but played ad nauseum. *** from ****

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12 out of 18 people found the following comment useful :-
"If Troy Donahue can be a movie star ...", 29 July 2006

Author: Martin Bradley (MOscarbradley@aol.com) from Derry, Ireland

Sloan Wilson's best-seller was the kind of novel people read on the beach and was described at the time as 'steamy'. In 1959, this film version by Delmer Daves would have been considered 'daring' or even 'salacious' since it deals, quite frankly as it turns out, with the subject of sex. Of course, it's soap-opera but it's very enjoyable and surprisingly grown-up of it's kind and it's got some really good performances.

As the young lovers, both Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee handle the material with unusual delicacy. We aren't talking Oscars here but neither do they disgrace themselves. (Dee is particularly fine, Donahue less so, hunky but also a bit wooden, reminding you of the song from "A Chorous Line" that went 'If Troy Donahue can be a movie star, then I can be a movie star; funny how both he and Sandra Dee were immortalized in song).

As the cuckolded spouses Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford are first-rate, (they are the villains of the piece and have the meatier roles). Unfortunately, neither Richard Egan nor Dorothy McGuire, (perpetually saint-like), have much charisma as the adulterous parents. Daves has always been an under-rated director. He made a handful of excellent westerns before embarking on a series of romantic melodramas of which this was the first and the best. It's no classic but more than serviceable for a rainy Saturday afternoon.

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13 out of 20 people found the following comment useful :-
15 times of pure bliss., 5 March 1999
Author: pwaz from hudson, florida

I consider A Summer Place one of the best movies ever. The acting was good by everyone. Troy Donahue, Dorothy McGuire, Richard Egan, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy, Constance Ford. I have seen the movie about 15 times, originally in the movie theatre, everytime it comes on TV and I have a tape of it and watch it every so often. I love it.

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6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Who do you think you are? Troy Donahue?, 21 February 2007

Author: gooelf50 from Canada

This was an OK movie. The big draw was Troy Donahue in his first starring film role. A fine looking young Sandra Dee was also a big draw, although not as big as Donahue. I remember that I was a lad in high school when the film was released and all of the girls raved about the fantastic looking blonde wonder boy, Troy Donahue. Whenever one of the guys started acting a little too cool, he was brought quickly back to reality with the question, "Who do you think you are? Troy Donahue?" The Theme song of the movie was played by Percy Faith and his orchestra and was called simply "Theme from a Summer Place" and was on the pop charts for months. Guys loved the song as much as girls because it had a slow and lilting rhythm that even the most awkward oaf could dance to and the girls just loved to be held tightly when it was playing. The scenery was delightful as the film was shot at the seashore where there was lots of water, sand and lush greenery. The plot was fairly comprehensive and involved affairs and marital deceit compounded by the love that developed between Troy and Sandra's characters. All in all not a bad movie, certainly worth the 45 cents admission that I paid to see it in 1959.

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