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Last Summer (1969 film)

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Last Summer
Theatrical Poster
Directed byFrank Perry
Written byEleanor Perry
Based onLast Summer
by Evan Hunter
StarringBarbara Hershey
Richard Thomas
Bruce Davison
Catherine Burns
CinematographyEnrique Bravo
Gerald Hirschfeld
Edited bySidney Katz
Marion Kraft
Music byJohn Simon
Production
company
Alsid Productions
Distributed byAllied Artists
Release date
  • June 19, 1969 (1969-06-19)
Running time
97 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$780,000[1]
Box office$3 million (rentals)[2]

Last Summer is a 1969 teen drama film directed by Frank Perry and written by his then-wife Eleanor Perry, based on the 1968 novel of the same name by Evan Hunter. It stars Barbara Hershey, Richard Thomas, Bruce Davison, and Catherine Burns. The film follows the exploits of four teenagers during a summer vacation on Fire Island, New York.

Released in the United States on June 19, 1969, Last Summer received generally positive reviews, with Burns garnering an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress.[3]

Plot

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Dan and Peter, two youths vacationing on Fire Island, befriend a young woman named Sandy, who has found an injured seagull on a beach. While nursing the seagull back to health, the three friends spend time experimenting with alcohol, marijuana, and their sexuality. Dan and Peter, both virgins, express interest in having sex with Sandy, whom they suspect is also a virgin. The trio make the acquaintance of a slightly younger teenager, Rhoda, a shy girl who confides in the others that her mother died in a drowning accident. Rhoda becomes close with Peter and they share a kiss.

One day, the boys find that Sandy has killed the seagull after it bit her. The three older friends pull a prank by arranging a dinner date with an older man, Anibal, through a computer dating service. After getting him drunk, they abandon him to a group of local bullies despite Rhoda's protests. Tension builds between Rhoda and the three older teens, and in the final sequence Dan, Peter, and Sandy pin down Rhoda near the beach as Dan rapes her. After the attack, Sandy and Dan are seen walking away, as Peter, standing alone, stares into the ocean.

Cast

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Production

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Barbara Hershey, Bruce Davison and Richard Thomas in a scene from Last Summer filmed on Fire Island, New York

The film takes place and was filmed on Fire Island, a long sandbar off Long Island with the Atlantic Ocean on one side, the Great South Bay on the other, and upper-class summer homes built on its beaches and dunes.[4] For the final week of principal photography, production moved to Bay Shore, Long Island.[4]

The accidental breaking of a seagull's neck during filming affected Barbara Hershey sufficiently for her to change her surname to Seagull for a couple of years.[5]

Evan Hunter, author of the source novel, wrote a sequel novel titled Come Winter, which was released in 1973.[6]

Release

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The film was given an X rating when it was first submitted to the MPAA due to the scene that depicted Rhoda's rape.[4] Last Summer was one of a handful of high-profile X-rated movies that were released in 1969, along with the Best Picture Oscar winner Midnight Cowboy and Haskell Wexler's docudrama Medium Cool.[7] The scene was edited shortly after its initial theatrical release so the film could receive an R-rating, though this version still contained nudity and strong language. When the film was occasionally broadcast for television, a further-censored PG-rated version was presented, which cuts all nudity and heavily edits the scene of Rhoda's rape. The R-rated version is the one distributed for the VHS videotape release.[8]

All original 35mm prints of the film were lost for years.[9] In 2001, a 16mm print was located at the National Film and Sound Archive of Australia after a two-year search and was brought to Los Angeles.[7] It was reportedly the only surviving film print of the movie. The 16mm print was given a rare screening at the American Cinematheque's Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles in 2012.[7] On June 4, 2017, the print also received a screening at New York City's Quad Cinema.[10] To date, the film has not been issued a DVD release.

Soundtrack

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The film had a soundtrack album (Warner Bros.-Seven Arts WS 1791) of the score composed by John Simon and Collin Walcott.[11][12] Heard on the soundtrack are John Simon (piano), Collin Walcott (sitar, tamboura), Aunt Mary's Transcendental Slip and Lurch Band (rock band), Cyrus Faryar (voice), Buddy Bruno (voice), Ray Draper (tuba, voice), Electric Meatball (rock band), Henry Diltz (banjo, voice), Bad Kharma Dan and the Bicycle Brothers (motorcycle gang). Rick Danko, Levon Helm and Richard Manuel of The Band are heard on the soundtrack as well, but were uncredited because they recorded for another record label.

Critical reception

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Last Summer received positive reviews.[13][14] Roger Ebert gave the movie four stars, writing:

From time to time you find yourself wondering if there will ever be a movie that understands life the way you've experienced it. There are good movies about other people's lives, but rarely a movie that recalls, if only for a scene or two, the sense and flavor of life the way you remember it.

Adolescence is a period that most people, I imagine, remember rather well. For the first time in your life important things were happening to you; you were growing up; what mattered to you made a difference...[On] top of the desire to be brave and honorable, there was also the compelling desire to be accepted, to be admitted to membership in that adolescent society defined only by those excluded from it...

Frank Perry's Last Summer is about exactly such years and days, about exactly that time in the life of four 15- or 16-year-old adolescents, and it is one of the finest, truest, most deeply felt movies in my experience.[15]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Frank Perry Discussion". Criterion Forum. Retrieved August 22, 2016.
  2. ^ "Big Rental Films of 1969". Variety. January 7, 1970. p. 15.
  3. ^ "The 42nd Academy Awards". www.oscars.org. October 4, 2014. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  4. ^ a b c "Last Summer (1969)". AFI Catalog of Feature Films. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  5. ^ Forsberg, Myra (March 29, 1987). "FILM; Barbara Hershey: In Demand". The New York Times.
  6. ^ Hunter, Evan (1973). Come Winter. Constable & Robinson. ISBN 9780094592902.
  7. ^ a b c King, Susan (January 18, 2012). "'Last Summer' to have rare screening from American Cinematheque". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on April 28, 2020.
  8. ^ "Last Summer". refused-classification.com. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  9. ^ Feinberg, Scott; Johnson, Scott (February 3, 2020). "Catherine Burns: The Vanishing of an Oscar-Nominated Actress". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  10. ^ "Last Summer". Quad Cinema. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  11. ^ "John Simon – Last Summer - The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack". Discogs. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  12. ^ "Last Summer - The Original Motion Picture Soundtrack". Internet Archive. May 13, 1969. Retrieved October 7, 2023.
  13. ^ Canby, Vincent (June 11, 1969). "Screen: 'Last Summer':Cinema I Film Brings Trio of Newcomers". The New York Times.
  14. ^ "Last Summer (1969)". FilmFanatic.org. Retrieved May 14, 2008.
  15. ^ Ebert, Roger (August 15, 1969). "Last Summer (1969)". RogerEbert.com. Chicago Sun-Times.
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