A Summer Place (film)  

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A Summer Place is the title of a 1959 film based on the novel of the same name by Sloan Wilson.

Plot

The story examines the adult lives of two onetime teen lovers, Ken (Egan) and Sylvia (McGuire), who were from different social strata. He was self-supporting, working as a lifeguard at Pine Island, an exclusive Maine resort, while her nouveau riche family stayed as guests of the owners, one summer between years at college. They went on to marry different people – entirely the wrong people, it turned out. The saving grace of each marriage is their children, Sylvia's son Johnny (Donahue), and Ken's daughter Molly (Dee). They meet again on Pine Island, with Ken now wealthy through his chemistry research, while Sylvia's husband Bart has turned their home into an inn, which is failing. Johnny and Molly meet, and fall in love, while Ken and Sylvia begin to cheat with each other on their spouses.

While the movie became popular, it had a mixed critical reception and received some negative reviews through the years. The movie's theme song, "Theme from A Summer Place", composed by Max Steiner and recorded by Percy Faith and his Orchestra, became a hit in 1960, and remains a classic of its era. (A vocal version, with lyrics by Mack Discant, was a hit for The Lettermen in 1965; singer Dean Torrence referenced Steiner's melody in Jan and Dean's "Like a Summer Rain" in 1966.)

Cast




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "A Summer Place (film)" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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