BoardChiri Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

PiraBit if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Justina The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

lssmc Oh the memories! The theme from this movie by Percy Faith will to be locked in my mind forever! When I saw it was being featured on classic movies recently, I immediately tuned in. Seeing Troy and Sandra in their youth brought me back to my youth. One of those movies that will ever be a part of my teenage years. God Bless TMC for bringing it back.

Dalbert Pringle As far as scorching, melodramatic (and sometimes over-the-top) soap operas go - A Summer Place's scandal-ridden story (from 1959) actually held up surprisingly well (until about the point when Ken & Sylvia's shocking, little infidelity made newspaper headlines).It was following this climatic moment (which happened at about the 60-minute point) that A Summer Place then began to seriously lose a lot of its initial steam as it inevitably petered out into a rather sappy, "happy ending" fizzle.Featuring a pretty competent cast, headlined by the likes of Richard Egan and (teen idol) Troy Donahue, A Summer Place was definitely quite an emotional, little roller-coaster ride at times, containing plenty of vicious muck-slinging, punctuated by equally damning jabs of biting dialogue.When dealing maturely with sexual issues, A Summer Place was certainly a very frank and racy story for its day.The one real standout performance that I think is worth mentioning in the film was that of Constance Ford who played Helen Jorgenson, Molly's brittle and hateful mother who repeatedly reared her ugly head as a nasty, sanctimonious hypocrite.

Karl Ericsson Viewing every film as a propaganda-film is, I believe, a very sound way to look on films. Even a seemingly "harmless" film about science is probably the most dangerous propaganda of all, since you are totally unprepared for it watching such a film. It's like with the peasant in medieval times visiting the cathedral and being so intimidated by the grandeur of it all, that he may just accept anything spoken to him in such a place. The "science" program on television is much the same - we do understand about as little about the science as the peasant about the cathedral but we are utterly impressed and accept just about anything coming from a "reliable and scientific" source.Now, a Hollywood-film about love may not seem to be very scientific but is nevertheless most propagandic in its affirmation (often) that what it presents is the view of a majority of people and - could all these people be wrong? Revolution cannot come about without self-esteem. A crushed people is a crushed people and it will only rise if it musters up the strength to fight for justice - but how will it find justice, if it thinks less of itself than it thinks of its masters? The self-evidence of equality will not enter the mind of the slave that accept its role of slave.Insidiously and, because of its other qualities, rather sadly this film somehow comes across telling that there is no difference between lust and love. We might agree that there should not be any difference but one look at a modern porn-film sure tells us that there is and if we are still not convinced about the humiliations going on in these films, we must only consider that rape does indeed exist. We do not have to be in love or anywhere near it in order to perform "the act of love" as it is so "nicely" put.On the other hand, and that is the beautiful part of this film, where there is true love there is also lust for one another, however, this beautiful conception is quickly lost when the young man is portrayed as being an innocent victim of lust that cannot be controlled. Lust can always be controlled, especially if love is involved and that truth is sadly not present in this picture.So, all in all, the propaganda that we are left with is not the propaganda of love and instead the propaganda of lust, which may contain just about any evil under the sun in this power-society.

dougdoepke It's easy to mock this big tub of soap suds. What with the two baby-faced innocents and a ton of Dee's pouty close-ups, it's a generous slice of white bread, 50's style. But beneath all the teen-age angst and adult philandering lies a surprisingly subversive message for that uptight decade. Because, once things get sorted out over the 130 minutes, we find out a number of social rules have not only been broken, but their violation justified. For example: the storyline implies that teen sex may be okay as long as the kids truly love each other— a violation of the teenage abstinence rule; that unwed teen pregnancy need not be punished— a challenge to Production Code insistence; and that adultery may be okay if the spouses are in impossible marriages—a further erosion of that seemingly sacred institution. The overall idea, is that no matter what, true love forgives all.Now, this may seem pretty tame stuff 50-years later in our anything-goes era. But I guarantee, it was cutting edge Hollywood at the time, even if the messages were buried in a load of glossy make-believe. Responding to the slick package were lines of teens stretching around the block, and it wasn't just because of the catchy title tune. Then too, those folks curious about the breakdown of 50's conformity and the youth rebellion of the 60's should include this highly unexpected entry in their thinking.At the same time, writer-director Daves seems an unlikely source for both the message and the genre, with his background in adult Westerns, such as the classic 3:10 to Yuma (1957). Here, he's very shrewd in his casting of Hollywood veterans. There's the likably masculine Egan (Ken) and the saintly maternal McGuire (Sylvia). Between them, they make infidelity seem not only permissible, but required. Then there's the affably tipsy Kennedy (Bart) and the assertively witchy Ford (Helen). Between them, they make cuckolding seem not only permissible, but also required. Taken together, it's almost perfect type casting. My only reservation is with Ford who seems too aggressively mean to make her marriage believable.Daves is also a sneaky filmmaker since he wraps the controversial subtext in irresistible gloss. Few pictures of the era are as gorgeous as this one, and I'm not just talking about Donahue (who's even prettier than his co-star). Those Technicolor shots of the Carmel coastline are mesmerizing, along with the Lloyd Wright cliffside house. For visual contrast, compare this production with the thematically similar but dour-looking Blue Denim of the same year and also with two blonde innocents-- Brandon deWilde and Carol Lynley. The black&white Denim is the more earnest of the two, yet lacks the candy-box covering that giftwraps this production. Thus, for all its seriousness, Denim lacked the same teen drawing power and impact.Anyway, as mentioned, mocking the film is easy, what with all the soapsuds and two Photoplay leads. However, I salute Daves for knowing how to get his humane message across to a popular audience, despite providing grist for generations of smirking critics. Happily, Daves proves here that there was more to his filmmaking than a fast gun, Glenn Ford, and a slow train to Yuma.