Summer of '42 (1971)

Summer of '42 is a 1971 American coming-of-age film based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman "Hermie" Raucher. It tells the...

Summer of '42 is a 1971 American coming-of-age film based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman "Hermie" Raucher. It tells the story of how Raucher, in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation on Nantucket Island (off the coast of Cape Cod), embarks on a one-sided romance with a young woman, Dorothy, whose husband has gone off to fight in World War II. {full_page}

The film was directed by Robert Mulligan, and starred Gary Grimes as Hermie, Jerry Houser as his best friend Oscy, Oliver Conant as their nerdy young friend Benjie, and Jennifer O'Neill, as the mysterious woman with whom Hermie becomes involved. In supporting roles, Katherine Allentuck and Christopher Norris are a pair of girls whom Hermie and Oscy attempt to seduce. Mulligan also has an uncredited narrator role, as the voice of the adult Hermie. Maureen Stapleton (Allentuck's mother) also appears in a small, uncredited voice role.

Raucher's novelization of his screenplay of the same name was released prior to the film's release and became a runaway bestseller, to the point that audiences lost sight of the fact that the book was based on 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 a 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.

The film opens with a series of still photographs appearing over melancholic music, representing the abstract memories of the unseen Herman Raucher, now a middle-aged man. Raucher recalls the summer he spent on Nantucket island in 1942. The film flashes back to a day that then-15-year-old "Hermie" and his friends – jock Oscy and introverted nerd Benjie – spent playing on the beach. They spot a young soldier carrying his new bride into a house on the beach, and are struck by her beauty, especially Hermie, who is unable to get her out of his mind.

They continue spending afternoons on the beach where, in the midst of scantily-clad teenage girls, their thoughts invariably turn to sex. All of them are virgins: Oscy is obsessed with the act of sex, while Hermie finds himself developing 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 local market struggling with grocery bags that she subsequently drops and comes to her aid and offers to carry the bags home for her, which she gladly accepts, and in this way gets to meet her.

Meanwhile, Oscy and Hermie, thanks to an illustrated sex manual discovered by Benjie, become convinced they know everything necessary to lose their virginity. Led by Oscy, they test this by going to the cinema and picking up a trio of high-school girls. Oscy stakes out the most attractive one, 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, and is not seen by Hermie or Oscy again that night. Initially the two girls who were with Hermie and Oscy say they will not go in without Benjie's would-be date, but she tells them to go without her, then leaves herself. While they are waiting in the ticket line for the movie, the young war bride appears and greets Hermie and asks him if he can help her move some boxes the next day. The remainder of the evening is devoted to attempting to "put the moves" on Miriam and Aggie while they watch the film. Oscy pursues Miriam, eventually making out with her during the movie, and later learns her ways are well-known on the island. Hermie finds himself succeeding with Aggie, who allows him to grope what he thinks is her breast; Oscy later points out Hermie was fondling her arm.

The next morning, Hermie helps the bride move boxes into her attic, her bare thigh at one point passing by his face on a ladder, and she thanks him by giving him a kiss on the forehead. Later, in preparation for a marshmallow roast on the beach with Aggie and Miriam, Hermie goes to the local drugstore and builds up the nerve to ask the druggist (Lou Frizzell) for condoms. That night, Hermie roasts marshmallows with Aggie while Oscy succeeds in having sex with Miriam between the dunes. He is so successful he sneaks over to Hermie and Aggie to ask for more condoms. Confused as to what is happening, Aggie follows Oscy back, where she sees him having sex with Miriam 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 says she looks forward to seeing him, revealing her name is Dorothy. An elated Hermie goes home and puts on a suit, dress shirt, and dress shoes, and heads back to Dorothy's house, running into Oscy on the way; Oscy relates that Miriam's appendix burst and she has been rushed to the mainland. Hermie, convinced he is at the brink of adulthood because of his relationship with Dorothy, brushes Oscy off.

He heads to her house, which is eerily quiet. Going in, he discovers a bottle of whiskey, a record player spinning at the end of a record, several cigarette butts, and a telegram from the government. Dorothy's husband is dead, his plane shot down over France. Dorothy comes out of her bedroom, crying, and Hermie tells her "I'm sorry." She turns on the record player and invites Hermie to dance with her. They kiss and embrace, tears on both their faces. Without speaking, they move to the bedroom, where she draws him into bed and gently makes love with him. Afterward, withdrawing again, Dorothy retires to the porch, leaving Hermie alone in her bedroom. He approaches her on the porch, where she can only quietly say "Good night, Hermie." He leaves, his last image of Dorothy being of her leaning against the railing, as she smokes a cigarette and stares into the night sky.

At dawn Hermie meets Oscy and the two share a moment of reconciliation, with Oscy informing Hermie that Miriam will recover. Oscy, in an uncharacteristic act of sensitivity, lets Hermie be by himself, departing with the words, "Sometimes life is one big pain in the ass."  Trying to sort out what has happened, Hermie goes back to Dorothy's house. Dorothy has fled the island in the night and an envelope is in the front door with Hermie's name on it. Inside is a note from Dorothy, saying she hopes he understands she must go back home as there is much to do. She assures Hermie she will never forget him, and he will find his way of remembering what happened that night. Her note closes with the hope that Hermie may be spared the senseless tragedies of life.

Cast  : 

Jennifer O'Neill as Dorothy 

Gary Grimes as Hermie 

Jerry Houser as Oscy 

Oliver Conant as Benjie 

Katherine Allentuck as Aggie 

Christopher Norris as Miriam 

Lou Frizzell as druggist

Herman Raucher wrote the film script in the 1950s during his tenure as a television writer, but "couldn't give it away."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. 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.

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.

Nantucket Island was too far modernized in 1970 to be convincingly transformed to resemble an early 1940s resort, so the production location selected was the town of Bar Harbor, Maine. 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. After production, Warner Bros., still wary about the film only being a minor success, asked Raucher to adapt his script into a book. Raucher wrote it in three weeks, and Warner Bros. released it prior to the film to build interest in the story. 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. 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.

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