CLASS OF 44
US, 1973, 95 minutes, Colour.
Gary Grimes, Jerry Houser, Oliver Conant, Deborah Winters, William Atherton, Sam Bottoms.
Directed by Paul Bogart.
Class of 44 is writer Herman Raucher’s sequel to his very popular and autobiographical Summer of 42. It was something of a classic, directed by Robert Mulligan and staring Gary Grimes and Jennifer O’ Neill. Jennifer O’ Neill does not appear in this film – it is a story of Gary Grimes and his friends as they grow up and go to high school. There is also some pathos and romance in the nostalgia of looking back from the 1970s to the 1940s. However, Summer of 42 made a very strong impact in its picture of adolescent love which cannot be sustained in this sequel.
Gary Grimes had only a short career, finishing in 1987. However, he did appear in The Culpepper Cattle Co, Cahill: US Marshal and The Spikes Gang.
1. The appeals of this film? For what audience, American, younger, older, generation of the 40's? Nostalgia. the sequel to The Summer of 42, box office for a sequel?
2. How important was the nostalgia? The 40's and its detail? The importance of the role of memory from the 70s? How realistically does memory bring back the past? The haze and aura of particular memories? The style of colour, panavision etc. to recreate the 40s?
3. How important was the nostalgia? the presentation of the songs of the 40s, politics, education at universities, the atmosphere of the war?
4. The three boys within this context? Presupposing audience knowledge of their growing up in The Summer of 42? Their experience of high school, graduation? The question of their future, the involvement in the war?
5. Themes of education, parental attitudes, exemptions? Bonny as less intellectual his going into the war? Oacy and Harry being sent for further education? Their having to cope with being educated while their contemporaries went to war?
6. How attractive a character was Harney? As a young man, naivete, maturity? Strengths and weaknesses of character? Attitude towards his parents, towards the war, to further education? His roommate, relationship with follow students? The relationship with Julie? What effect did she have on him? Study, classes, exams, cheating? sexual relationship? The various activities in university e.g. sport?
7. How well delineated was Julie as a character? Attractive? Age, presence at the university, boy friends, the relationship with Harnie and its quality and depth? Good influence, bad? Clashes? The possibility of a reconciliation at the end?
8. The contrast with Oacy? His attitude towards study, friendship? His loud style? His bringing a prostitute into the hall? The importance of his expulsion? Clerical work and dissatisfaction with it? His presence at the funeral, the drinking binge, his future?
9. The contrast with Bengey and his not going to the university, involvement with the war?
10. How well delineated were the other student characters eg Martie, the Fraternity president? The staff? The particular way of life at the university and in the hall?
11. The dramatic importance of the funeral, the affect on Harney? His going home, meeting Oncy? The drunken binge? The clash? The brawl?
12. The change in each of them during 1944? Did Harney mature? His return to university, to Julie? Themes of adolescence, education, parents, environment, relationships, growing and maturing ? A popular presentation of these?
