A SUMMER PLACE
US, 1959, 130 minutes, Colour.
Richard Egan, Dorothy Mc Guire, Sandra Dee, Arthur Kennedy, Troy Donohue, Constance Ford, Beulah Bondi.
Directed by Delmer Daves.
A Summer Place was based on a novel by Sloan Wilson (The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit). It was considered somewhat daring at the end of the 1950s. However, it was a sign of the times. The film was written and directed by Delmer Daves who directed a number of significant westerns and action films during the 1950s, including the breakthrough film about relationships with Native American Indians, Broken Arrow. He also made the classic 3.10 to Yuma. After this he made a number of romantic melodramas like Parrish and The Battle for the Villa Fiorita. Previously 20th Century- Fox had been making this kind of film, for example Peyton Place, A Certain Smile, Bonjour Tristesse. Daves established Warner Bros as a studio for making this kind of film.
The film focuses on two adults who betray their spouses and begin an affair. Their children also enter into a relationship. The film features the very popular song and a score by Max Steiner.
1. Why do audiences enjoy this kind of popular drama? How was this film typical of the style of the fifties and early sixties? How would this kind of film be made now?
2. The contribution of colour, locations, the ocean and waves and cliffs, the houses and yachts? The music background and the popular theme?
3. The nature of the title, the use of the title as a symbol for the lives and conflicts and their meaning?
4. What values did the film take for granted in its screenplay, in audience response: the nature of the value of persons and the importance of their lives, the quality of love, the nature of marriage, individual happiness and freedom, individual rights?
5. What moral stances did the film take? What moral stances did it presuppose In audiences? Absolute values of good and bad? A relativity of morals to circumstances? What norms for marriage, love and its fulfilment? Its treatment of social hypocrisy? The influence of example of people's lives? Strict moral stances versus lax stances?
Obvious breaking of moral conventions? The nature of repressed puritanism?
6. The Hunters, the memories of the past, the quality of their marriage over nineteen years, Bart's drinking, his snobbery and failure, preoccupation with money? His memories of Sylvia’s love for Ken? His living with this? Sylvia's memories of love, her decision to keep going, her relationship with her son? The pros and cons of their marriage? What ought Sylvia have done in regard to Ken? Allowing herself to be persuaded? Her mother presenting the alternatives? Whose fault was it that the marriage broke, or was it irreparably broken? Public reaction to the breaking of the marriage?
7. The Jorgensens, the reasons for their marrying, Ken’s background as the lifeguard, his reaction to Sylvia’s marrying Bart, his making of money, lack of love in his life, conforming in the marriage, returning to find Sylvia’s asking her to commit adultery with him? The reaction of Helen? Her narrowness, strident harshness, bordering on hysteria? Her despising of her husband? Her snobbish attitudes towards the Hunters? Her supervising of Molly, especially the doctor's examination? Her bluntness in naming names and speaking the truth? Was the marriage irreparably broken? Was it better for Ken to leave?
8. The film's portrayal of scandal: the American values, the newspaper headings, the critique of hypocrisy under conforming to moral standards, repressed puritanism?
9. The relationship between John and Molly? Their reaction to their parents, the shock? Influenced by their parents? The quality of their love as portrayed in their life at schools? The reasons for their not consummating their love? The pressures that drove them together? The forced marriage and their trying to get married? Forcing them back to Ken and Sylvia and the final acceptance?
10. What insight into marriage, law, divorce did the film offer?
11. Was it important that the film had an atmosphere of wealth and luxury?
12. The film is described as 'soap opera'. Justified? How much cliche and glamour? How much exploration of real issues and values?
