Amores Clandestinos

Ken and Helen Jorgenson (Richard Egan and Constance Ford) have a dead marriage. They haven't slept together for years, by her request. Helen is also a spiteful, nasty bigot who tries to indoctrinate to her daughter, Molly (Sandra Dee), that sex is dirty and evil. This highly dysfunctional and sad lot are on vacation at Pine Island, Maine...a place where Ken was a lifeguard two decades ago. There is more to the history of Pine Island than that, however, as Ken had once had an affair with a girl, Sylvia Hunter (Dorothy McGuire). Now Sylvia and her husband, Bart (Arthur Kennedy), run a hotel on the island...the hotel where the Jorgensons are coming for their summer vacation. As for the Hunters, Bart is an alcoholic and has checked out of his marriage from the very beginning. Not surprisingly, Ken and Sylvia are miserable and fall back in love. What is a bit surprising is that their children, Molly and Johnny Hunter (Troy Donahue) have fallen in love as well.

The writers and filmmakers did a great job of showing how adultery and premarital sex are NOT necessarily black & white issues. In the case of Sylvia and Ken, both have been emotionally abandoned by their selfish and detestable partners. And, in the case of Molly and Johnny, they are normal hot-blooded teens who have been thrust together by Molly's mother and her rants about the evils of sex. So, it's all very understandable...and all very, very risqué for 1959. But because the story is so well written and the production so glossy, it makes difficult moral issues and choices much more palatable--and provide for a lot to consider. It also makes for a wonderful film for young married couples to watch...sort of a morality tale about what NOT to do!

A highlight of this film is the speech Ken makes to Helen early in the film...about her many, many, many prejudices. According to IMDb, the crowd at one performance gave it a standing ovation! A very powerful scene indeed.

Overall, this film has many strong scenes, excellent acting, nice music and all the gloss a Hollywood production could have. It also has quite a bit of depth and raises many interesting issues...making it perhaps the best soap opera movie of the day. And, fortunately, while the film might seem a tad dated (such as the custody arrangements), it also is timeless with its themes.

Wow, Sandra Dee made two big soap opera connections in 1959, starring opposite of two of Hollywood's biggest female stars, Lana Turner in "Imitation of Life" and then "A Summer Place" with Dorothy McGuire. Pure soap on a rope in both of these films.....was in my first year of high school when this film opened and every girl I ever knew of in school and my neighborhood was hooked on this movie. Tell any girl you liked back then you would take them to see this movie, some of them 2-3 times and you had a sure date! Troy Donahue who had a bit role in "Imitation of Life" with Dee is the full blown boyfriend in this soaper. Good performances by the venerable actors Richard Egan, Dorothy Mcguire (in another never ending mother role), Arthur Kennedy and Constance Ford. How about Ford, Sandra Dee's evil, overbearing, sinister mother who wouldn't say a kind work about even Mother Theresa? By the middle of the film she has given the entire audience chills. Arthur Kennedy gave a solid performance as a drunk, down and out misfit father who offers a very sordid outlook on life for the young lovers, Dee and Donahue. Dorothy McGuire who appeared a little too old to me to be in love with the younger Egan gives a soaper-doaper performance extraordinare as the swindled mother who longs for her old boyfriend Egan. Then there is that never ending Max Steiner/Percy Faith theme song from the movie blurting out every few seconds.....no one in their 50s or 60s today could ever forget how many thousands of times they heard that song on the old am radios. Donahue became a soap opera lothario thanks to this film, making other soap suds in "Parrish" with Connie Stevens, and reuniting with McGuire in "Susan Slade" again with Stevens as the love interest. So sad to hear last year of the death of Dee and a couple of years earlier Donahue....... Dorothy McGuire a couple of years ago too. This film must have been the inspiration for any number of television soapers that have stayed on TV over the years.

One of the great young love romances ever done on the screen, A Summer Place is the story of two romances, one born and the other rekindled.

Richard Egan and Constance Ford with their daughter Sandra Dee are returning to Pine Island, Maine where years ago before Egan became wealthy as a research chemist he was employed as a lifeguard and where he romanced one of the town beauties. Pine Island is like Kennebunkport, the private reserve of the Bush family. This is the private reserve of several old Yankee families who if they can't trace their ancestors on the Mayflower at least they go back to Puritans who might have found New England more hospitable than Restoration Great Britain.

Egan's rented out several rooms from thinning blue blood Arthur Kennedy and his wife Dorothy McGuire. It was McGuire who Egan loved and lost those many years ago.

Neither Egan and McGuire have found much happiness in their second choice for spouses. Constance Ford, a truly uptight and frigid woman from Buffalo has not kanoodled with Egan for years. You know he's good and ready. As for McGuire's marriage, Kennedy has all the airs of a patrician, but not the money any more. Did he lose it because of his alcohol problem, or is he drinking because the family fortune has gone? It's your choice.

So Egan and McGuire discover each other and Sandra Dee discovers Kennedy and McGuire's son, Troy Donahue. Because of her mother, Dee's led a sheltered life and I'm betting the isolation of Pine Isle with its very few inhabitants hasn't improved Donahue's social skills either. The two kids are sadly a textbook case for sex education.

Feeling betrayed by their parents, all of them when you come right down to it, the young people feel they have only each other. The passion multiplies exponentially.

Right up there with the human cast members in making A Summer Place a big commercial hit for Warner Brothers is Max Steiner's theme, played when Dee and Donahue are together. It's popularity on the radio and jukeboxes sold many a ticket to this film.

Egan and McGuire are also appealing in their way to discover their passions are still the same. The odd spouses out are also turning in fine performances. Arthur Kennedy who was never bad in any film he ever did is both arrogant and yet pitiable as the sad sack alcoholic. The villain of A Summer Place is really Ford, she's made life hell for Egan and Dee. Yet you wonder throughout the film what must have she been like back in the day for Egan to fall for her in the first place and what changed her.

It's Eisenhower era America and the story is dated somewhat, but not all that much. I can see A Summer Place being a candidate for a remake, who would you cast in a remake among today's players?

I saw A Summer Place for the first time very recently, and one thing that really struck me was just how gutsy Constance Ford's portrayal of Helen Jorgenson was. Not many actors can pull off a character who has absolutely no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Most actors would pressure the director and writer into giving their characters at least a small bit of sympathy, but Ford was excellent at playing someone thoroughly bad.

I'm sure she got static for her portrayal when she visited the supermarket or whatever in her daily life.

I'm not kidding, Bruno Ganz' portrayal of Adolf Hitler in Der Untergang/Downfall was more sympathetic and likable than Constance's portrayal of Helen.

Despite being almost overwhelmingly melodramatic when treating the subject of sex in the context of its time, A SUMMER PLACE manages to rise above the soap suds when dealing with mismatched parents and a rekindled love affair (DOROTHY McGUIRE and RICHARD EGAN) that almost destroys everyone's happiness.

It's all very lush looking in magnificent color, a Pine Island resort in Maine photographed principally in Northern California along the Monterey coast. Whenever emotions soar, whether quiet emotions or full throttled ones, Max Steiner's music is there ready to lend a helping hand.

As the teen-aged lovers, SANDRA DEE and TROY DONAHUE are just as photogenic as the landscapes they're photographed against, especially when the color cameras turn their close inspection on the two bronzed, blue-eyed stars. While not quite as photogenic, DOROTHY McGUIRE and RICHARD EGAN are quietly having a love affair of their own which must be kept hidden from their respective spouses until a showdown that leads to a rather satisfying conclusion.

The handsome production values and earnest performances are matched well against Max Steiner's famous score. His "The Theme from A Summer Place" is as gorgeous and popular as ever with soundtrack fans.

A SUMMER PLACE can take its place alongside other handsomely produced soapers of the '50s. CONSTANCE FORD and ARTHUR KENNEDY do very well in strong supporting roles and it's all a bit more substantial than it sounds on paper.

Easy to see why Max Steiner's "Theme from A Summer Place" hit the top of the music charts for a long, long time in the summer of '59.