Summer '42
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| German title | Summer '42 |
| Original title | Summer of '42 |
| Country of production | United States |
| original language | English |
| Publishing year | 1971 |
| length | 104 (German version) minutes, 103 (original) minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 16 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Robert Mulligan |
| script | Herman smoker |
| production | Richard Alan Roth |
| music | Michel Legrand |
| camera | Robert Surtees |
| cut | Folmar Blangsted |
| occupation | |
| |
Sommer '42 (Original title: Summer of '42 ) is a 1970 melodrama directed by Robert Mulligan starring Jennifer O'Neill in the role of a young war widow, with whom a 15-year-old, plagued by puberty, falls in love. It premiered in the United States on April 9, 1971. The film opened on September 23, 1971 in the Federal Republic of Germany.
action
The pubescent youngsters Hermie, Oscy and Benjie spend the summer holidays in the war year 1942 on an island (not named in the film) off the coast of New England . In order to escape the daily monotony and boredom, they go on smaller "adventures", talk incessantly about girls with whom they absolutely want to sleep and watch from a distance a young woman named Dorothy who spends a few carefree days here with her husband before he does must go to war.
Hermie quickly falls in love with the attractive young woman. The two of them exchange a few words for the first time when Hermie helps Dorothy after shopping to carry her fully packed bags home. When they meet again at a movie theater event, Dorothy asks him to come over to her place in the next few days to help her with some heavy chores around the house.
One evening when Hermie wants to visit Dorothy again, her front door is open. He enters the house and sees a telegram on the table. It is a notification from the US Army that Dorothy's husband was killed in war (aerial battles over France). Hermie finds the completely distraught Dorothy and doesn't really know how to react appropriately. Dorothy, caught in her deep pain, makes Hermie decide, dances with him (to Michel Legrand's melancholy title track The Summer Knows ), and they sleep together. Then, deep in the night, Hermie goes home.
The next morning the boy returns to Dorothy's house, still completely overwhelmed by yesterday's events. It is no longer there. She left him a letter in which she explained that she has left the island and that she wished for the future that he would never suffer such a senseless misfortune as she did.
From the off, the narrator explains that he - the now adult Hermie - has never seen Dorothy again. The film ends with his words "Hermie from then was lost in a way, forever".
Production background
The film was shot in summer '42 1970 in several locations in California (Fort Bragg, Fort Briggs, Mendocino, Montecito) and in Toronto , Canada .
The production cost was about one million US dollars . In the United States, he grossed around $ 25 million.
The film ran for one summer in Germany under the title Spring (also title when it was broadcast on ZDF).
In the original, director Robert Mulligan also took on the role of voiceover, who in the role of the adult Hermie tells retrospectively of his decisive experiences in the summer of 1942.
During a cinema screening, the three 15-year-old friends see the melodrama Now Voyager with Bette Davis and Paul Henreid ; however, this film did not open in the United States until late October 1942.
Screenwriter Herman Raucher processed his own holiday memories on Nantucket in the autobiographical film . He dedicated the summer of '42 to his childhood friend Oscar Seltzer - the Oscy in the film. Seltzer fell a few years later during the Korean War . Raucher received an Oscar nomination for his script .
Michel Legrand received an Oscar for his composition. Above all, his ingratiating theme music was praised: the song The Summer Knows , which runs like a melancholy guide through the story.
The veteran camera Robert Surtees , whose sensitive and sometimes soft-focus shots (light / back light) give the film a flair of delicacy and cosmopolitanism, received an Oscar nomination for his performance.
In April 1973 a critically indifferent continuation of the film was shown under the title Class of '44 . The teenage leading actors Gary Grimes, Jerry Houser and Oliver Conant took up their old roles there again. In Germany this film was only shown on television (premiere 1996) under the title College-Liebe .
Also in 1996 was Summer '42 with the episode Summer of 4 Ft. 2 parodied in the animated series The Simpsons , five years later a stage version ( Off-Broadway ) was performed.
criticism
The carefully prepared story of the initiation met with a predominantly positive response from international criticism . The only criticism was the sometimes vulgar language of the young people who used the word “fuck”, which was not often used in movies at the time (1971).
The film's large personal lexicon called Sommer '42 a “bittersweet world war romance”, praised the “highly sensitive play of the leading actress Jennifer O'Neill” and finally summed up: “The sensitive portrait of a pubescent boy who ... had his first sexual experiences was not the last a success thanks to the very catchy, Oscar-winning music of Michel Legrand. "
The Movie & Video Guide labeled the film as “Enticing if unprofound nostalgia” and emphasized: “Captures 1940s flavor, adolescent boyhood, quite nicely”.
Halliwell's Film Guide characterized the film as follows: “Well-observed indulgence in the new permissiveness”
The Lexicon of International Films praised Sommer '42 : “Mulligan's subtle direction succeeded in observing the hardships of puberty in a psychologically believable way and in telling a love story in an atmospheric, almost non-sentimental way. Only the dialogue often seems too brash. "
In the Handbuch Films 1971–1976 it says about Sommer '42 : “Psychologically believable, subtly staged, but not always tasteful in dialogue”.
Web links
- Summer of '42 in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Jennifer O'Neill interview on the film ( Memento from February 5, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Kay Less : The large personal dictionary of the film . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 5: L - N. Rudolf Lettinger - Lloyd Nolan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 583.
- ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 6: N - R. Mary Nolan - Meg Ryan. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 68.
- ^ A b Leonard Maltin : Movie & Video Guide, 1996 edition, p. 1269
- ^ Leslie Halliwell : Halliwell's Film Guide, Seventh Edition, New York 1989, p. 975
- ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films Volume 7, p. 3518. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
- ^ Films 1971–1976, Handbuch 9, Cologne 1977, page 284