Summer of '42

The film (and subsequent novel) were memoirs written by Herman Raucher; they detailed the events in his life over the course of the summer he spent on Nantucket Island in 1942 when he was fourteen years old.[5] Originally, the film was meant to be a tribute to his friend Oscar "Oscy" Seltzer, an Army medic killed in the Korean War.[5][6] Seltzer was shot dead on a battlefield in Korea while tending to a wounded man; this happened on Raucher's birthday, and consequently, Raucher has not celebrated a birthday since. While writing the screenplay, Raucher realized that despite growing up with Oscy and having bonded with him through their formative years, the two had never really had any meaningful conversations or known one another on a more personal level.[5]

Instead, Raucher decided to focus on the first major adult experience of his life, that of falling in love for the first time. The woman (named Dorothy, like her screen counterpart) was a fellow vacationer on the island whom the 14-year-old Raucher had befriended one day when he helped her carry groceries home; he became a friend of her and her husband and helped her with chores after her husband was called to fight in World War II. On the night memorialized in the film, Raucher randomly came to visit her, unaware his arrival was just minutes after she received notification of her husband's death. She was confused and upset, had been drinking heavily, and repeatedly called Raucher by her husband's name. Although both ultimately disrobed, contrary to popular perception, sexual intercourse did not occur. Raucher admitted this in a 2002 interview, saying it was mostly holding, but in the movie "We let you think what you want."[5]

The next morning, Raucher discovered that she had left the island, leaving behind a note for him (which is read at the end of the film and reproduced in the book). He never saw her again; his last "encounter" with her, recounted on an episode of The Mike Douglas Show, came after the film's release in 1971, when she was one of over a dozen women who wrote letters to Raucher claiming to be "his" Dorothy.[7] Raucher recognized the "real" Dorothy's handwriting, and she confirmed her identity by making references to certain events only she could have known about.[7] She told Raucher that she had lived for years with the guilt that she had potentially traumatized him and ruined his life. She told Raucher that she was glad he turned out all right, and that they had best not re-visit the past.[5][7]

In a 2002 Scripps Treasure Coast Publishing interview, Raucher lamented never hearing from her again and expressed his hope that she was still alive.[5] Raucher's novelization of the screenplay, with the dedication, "To those I love, past and present," serves more as the tribute to Seltzer that he had intended the film to be, with the focus of the book being more on the two boys' relationship than Raucher's relationship with Dorothy. Consequently, the book also mentions Seltzer's death, which is absent from the film adaptation.[8]

A glaring error in both the book and film centers around the movie Now, Voyager. They go to a movie theater to see the movie in the "summer of '42". However, the film was released nationally in the U.S. on October 31, 1942, with an October 22 premiere in New York City, so it would have been impossible to see the movie that summer.

Raucher wrote the film script in the 1950s during his tenure as a television writer, but "couldn't give it away."[5] 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.[5] 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.[5]

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.[9]

Though set on the east coast, Summer of '42 was filmed in Northern California, largely in Fort Bragg and Mendocino.[10] 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.[5]

After production, Warner Bros., still wary about the film only being a minor success, asked Raucher to adapt his script into a book.[5] Raucher wrote it in three weeks, and Warner Bros. released it prior to the film to build interest in the story.[5] 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.[5][8] 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.[8]

The film became a blockbuster upon its release, grossing over $32 million, making one of the most successful films of 1971, with an expense-to-profit ratio of 1:32;[11] beyond that, it is estimated video rentals and purchases in the United States since the 1980s have produced an additional $20.5 million.[12] On this point, Raucher said in May 2002 that his ten percent of the gross, in addition to royalties from book sales, "has paid bills ever since."[5]

Summer of '42 received positive reviews. The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes reported a 79% approval rating based on 24 reviews, with an average rating of 6.73/10.[13]

In The Guardian, Derek Malcolm wrote Summer of '42 "is one of those rare films you can't help liking simply for its aspirations, which are so honest and open-minded."[14] He concluded, "You could, I suppose, view it as a deeply romantic film full of a specifically American yearning for the purity of pubescence. You could also view it more simply as an ingratiating comedy about latent sexuality. Either way you can't doubt its charm and sheer professionalism, even if the pace is slack at times."[14]

Vincent Canby of The New York Times expressed that Hermie's encounter with Dorothy is "a good deal more common in novels and screenplays (and in the Hermie-like fantasies of middle-aged writers) than in real life", but praised the film's "reticent quality of its romanticism" and its actors.[15] Canby concluded the "foreground is mostly accurate, in which sexual panic and fist fights and nose bleeds are treated with the great comic respect they deserve."[16]

Some critics were critical of the film's nostalgic framework. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times said the film is undercut by its rose-tinted nostalgic tone, writing, "Nostalgia is used as a distancing device -- to keep us safely insulated from the boy's immediate grief, love, and passion."[16] Ebert noted the film is "beautifully produced and photographed", but lacked more of a perspective on Hermie's experiences and how it changed him.[16] Variety wrote, "The emotional and sexual awakening of teenagers is a dramatic staple. Robert Mulligan’s Summer of '42 has a large amount of charm and tenderness; it also has little dramatic economy and much eye-exhausting photography which translates to forced and artificial emphasis on a strungout story."[17]

Warner Bros. Home Entertainment first released the film on VHS in 1984.[18] It was released on DVD by Warner in 2002.[19] The Warner Archive Collection reissued the DVD in 2014,[20] followed by a Blu-ray release in 2017.[21]

Legrand's theme song for the film, "The Summer Knows", has since become a pop standard, being recorded by such artists as Peter Nero (who had a charting hit with his 1971 version), Biddu (1975 international chart hit), Tony Bennett, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Andy Williams, Jonny Fair, Scott Walker, Elis Regina, Jackie Evancho, Oscar Peterson, Bill Evans, Toots Thielemans, George Benson, Roger Williams, and Barbra Streisand.[26]

The 1973 song "Summer (The First Time)" by Bobby Goldsboro has almost exactly the same subject and apparent setting, although there is no direct credited link. Bryan Adams has, however, credited the film as being a partial inspiration for his 1985 hit "Summer of '69".[30]

Garth Brooks' 1993 hit "That Summer" features a similar story of a coming-of-age male in a romance with an older female.[31]

Roger Williams

Peter Nero

Biddu Orchestra

In 1973, the film was followed by Class of '44, a slice-of-life film made up of vignettes about Herman Raucher and Oscar Seltzer's experiences in college. Class of '44 involves the boys facing army service in the last year of World War II. The only crew member from Summer of '42 to return to the project was Raucher himself, who wrote the script; a new director and composer were brought in to replace Mulligan and Legrand. Of the four principal cast members of Summer of '42, only Jerry Houser and Gary Grimes returned for prominent roles, with Oliver Conant making two brief appearances totaling less than two minutes of screen time. Jennifer O'Neill did not appear in the film at all, nor was the character of Dorothy mentioned.

The film met with poor critical reviews; the only three reviews available at Rotten Tomatoes are resoundingly negative,[45][46] with Channel 4 calling it "a big disappointment,"[47] and The New York Times stating "The only things worth attention in 'Class of '44' are the period details," and "'Class of '44' seems less like a movie than 95 minutes of animated wallpaper."[48]

In 2001, Raucher consented to the film being made into an off Broadway musical play.[5] He was on hand opening night, giving the cast a pep-talk which he concluded, "We've now done it every possible way – except go out and piss it in the snow!"[49] The play met with positive critical and fan response, and was endorsed by Raucher himself, but the play was forced to close down in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.[5] Nevertheless, the play was enough to spark interest in the film and book with a new generation, prompting Warner to re-issue the book (which had since gone out of print, along with all of Raucher's other works) for sale with Barnes & Noble's online bookstore, and to restore the film and release it on DVD.[5] The musical has since been performed across the country, at venues such as Kalliope Stage in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 2004 (directed by Paul Gurgol) and Mill Mountain Theatre in Roanoke, Virginia, (directed by Jere Hodgin and choreographed by Bernard Monroe), and was subsequently recorded as a concert by the York Theatre Company in 2006.

In 2002, O'Neill claimed to have obtained the rights to make a sequel to Summer of '42, based on a short story she wrote. This story took place in an alternate reality where Herman Raucher had a son and divorced his wife, went back to Nantucket in 1962 with a still-living Oscar Seltzer, encountered Dorothy again and married her.[9] As of 2017, this project – which O'Neill had hoped to produce with Lifetime television[50] – had not been realized. It is unknown if O'Neill is still attempting to get it produced or if Raucher consented to its production.