Humaira Grant It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Rosie Searle It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

Byrdz "Summer Magic" is really strictly a younger kid's movie or a nostalgia for 1963 movie and I didn't think too much of it. The songs were silly, the snooty cousin was way way too cloyingly annoying, the supporting characters were just too stereo-typically Disney.It was fine seeing young Hayley Mills and Eddie Hodges and James Stacy and Peter Brown but the story , not so much.Then there's the odious Michael J. Pollard to consider. Why this guy is in so many pictures is a puzzlement!

James Hitchcock The decade that brought us the First World War may seem an odd subject for nostalgia, but "Summer Magic", like "On Moonlight Bay" from a few years earlier, is a film which tries to persuade us that, whatever may have been happening on the battlefields of Europe, the 1910s (or the "Ragtime Era" as many Americans called them) really were the time of a kinder, gentler America. (It is, apparently, a remake of a 1938 film called "Mother Carey's Chickens", which I have never seen). Margaret Carey, a recently widowed mother from Boston, is forced to move out of the family home when she discovers that her late husband was the victim of a fraudulent investment scheme. She and her three children, Nancy, Gilly and Peter, relocate to the small town of Beulah, Maine, where they rent a large yellow house. (Gilly- pronounced with a hard "G"- is a boy, not a girl. The name is presumably short for Gilbert, but this is never actually made clear). There are two main plot lines. The first revolves around the family's friendship with Ossian ("Osh") Popham, the agent for their rather mysterious landlord Mr Hamilton. The kindly Osh is more than just a letting agent; he is also the town's storekeeper and general odd-job- man. The second plot line deals with the visit of the Careys' spoilt, snobbish cousin Julia and the mutual dislike which grows up between her and Nancy, especially when they fall for the same man. This was the fourth of six films which Hayley Mills made for Walt Disney Productions. Hayley was, of course, originally from England, but during this period of her career was most often cast (as here) as an American, even though she had trouble managing a convincing American accent. (Here she attempts to sound more American by shortening the long "a" vowels, but this only makes her sound closer to Boston, Lincolnshire than to Boston, Massachusetts). This did not, however, affect her popularity, and she became possibly the most popular teenage star of the sixties. In Britain she tended to be cast in more serious roles ("Tiger Bay", "Whistle Down the Wind", "The Chalk Garden"), but most of her American films were comedies, of which this is a good example. It is also a good example of just what made Hayley so popular in her day- her wonderful liveliness and vivaciousness, combined with a gift for conveying sweetness and innocence. By 1963, when she would have been seventeen, she performed a sort of dual role for Disney. To the older generation she was the daughter they wished they had. To boys, she was the girlfriend they wished they had, a sex symbol in the nicest possible way. Dorothy McGuire, looking much younger than her 47 years, is good as Margaret, as is Deborah Walley as the insufferable Julia. The other performance which stands out, however, is from Burl Ives as the warm- hearted, if occasionally devious, Osh. Ives had originally made his name as a folk-singer, but later became a successful actor, both on Broadway and in the cinema. I had previously associated him with serious dramas such as "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" and "The Big Country", but here he shows that he could do light comedy as well. The film is also a musical with several songs, although none of them rally stand out apart from "The Ugly Bug Ball", which was a favourite of mine as a child. (I had no idea at the time that it was from a film). The plot at times becomes a bit hard to follow, especially the various machinations involving Osh and Mr Hamilton, and the ending seems a bit too abrupt. Overall, however, the film's cheerful atmosphere and the contributions of Mills and Ives make this a watchable example of warm- hearted Disney family entertainment. 7/10

sheila-hall60 I have just watched Summer Magic again,it has been many years since I first saw the film. I enjoyed the film when it first came out and I still enjoyed it again today. It was one of those enjoyable films with a story and sheer entertainment, no swearing and a delight to watch. Great names like Burl Ives, Hayley Mills, Peter Brown etc, well do I need to go on, they all made the film. I was much younger when the first came out and my friend and I thought how wonderful it would be to walk down some stairs and have the lovely Peter Brown waiting for you. As I said I was younger then, but when I saw Summer Magic again today, I still had not changed my mind about Peter Brown waiting at the bottom of the stairs for me! I would recommend this film to everyone to watch.

ducdebrabant This movie bored me when I was ten and it was new, and a second viewing doesn't improve it much. Oh, it's nice to see Una Merkel through adult eyes, knowing who she is, and the movie has a certain curiosity value as an example of Disney's early 1960's film-making. The fruit basket art direction, the mickey-mousy accompanying score, the sophomoric comedy, all are in place. There's an English sheepdog (same one they used in THE SHAGGY DOG?). But it's no POLLYANNA (which holds up), and its arch and rambling story -- and the unrewarding conceit of all those mediocre Richard and Robert Sherman songs that characters are always bursting into -- undermine the talents of some reasonably talented people. Hayley Mills is visibly tired of parts like this, and poor Dorothy McGuire -- unflatteringly coiffed but beatific as always -- has to open her mouth so some other lady can dub in the superfluous title song. There's no necessity, what is more, for the likes of Eddie Hodges or Deborah Walley in any movie whatsoever. Walley is an annoying actress playing a character who's suppose to annoy us. The result is exponentially irksome. This is based on the book MOTHER CAREY'S CHICKENS which Bette Davis went on suspension at Warner Brothers rather than do (they don't credit that book by title in the credits, and no wonder). But really, what is the point of a movie about Bostonians adapting to life in the country when Boston looks like a back lot, rural Maine looks like a back lot, and it all basically takes place in that don't-confuse-this-with-reality Disney world? It was perfectly all right for the island in SWISS FAMILY ROBINSON to look like a ride at Disneyland, because the whole thing WAS a ride at Disneyland (even the original novel). The nadir may be the time when Burl Ives sings a song called "The Ugly Bug Ball" with nature footage spliced in, all manipulated so that real insects seem to be dancing and playing themselves as orchestral instruments. If a ballet company came to visit this little Maine town and did a performance in tutus in the town square, or if war broke out in Cuba and Michael J. Pollard came home with a medal to be greeted by Sousa and his band, I swear you wouldn't be one bit surprised. This is the time when Hayley is experiencing her Spring's Awakening, and it's always interesting to see what sort of boy flesh they find as a love interest for her. In IN SEARCH OF THE CASTAWAYS it was Michael Anderson Jr. Here it's (you think at first) sexy James Stacy. Again, through adult eyes, it's strange to see the tragic Mr. Stacy at this age, being the ripe forbidden fruit and future hot bet. The guy she ends up with (sort of; he doesn't kiss her or anything) is professional beauty Peter Brown. But the movie is tiring, slow going, and it took all of my critical distance and personal nostalgia to get me through it.