Summer Of '42 (Full Frame)

VHS, R, 102 minutes, WARNER

The war rages overseas. Triple-scoop ice cream comes cost 12 cents. Bette Davis resigns at the Bijou. And "love's mysteries" are found in the pages of a stolen medical book. That's how things are for 15-year-old Hermie during the summer he spends at a New England beach colony. By seasons end, Hermie will never again experience the world in the same way. Nominated for four Academy Awards and a winner of one for Michel Legrand's memorable score,"Summer of '42" is best-selling author Herman Raucher's warm-hearted story of the passage from innocence to experience. A nation is caught up in a war that will forever change it. An Hermie (Gary Grimes) is caught up in a passion that will forever change him: he's in love with 22-year-old Dorothy (hauntingly played by Jennifer O'Neill), who soldier/husband is away at that war. To Dorothy, Hermie's simply the schoolboy who eagerly carries her groceries. For Hermie, Dorothy's the woman of his dreams. And how those dreams become a bittersweet reality shapes one of the most poignant love scenes ever filmed. Robert Mulligan ("To Kill a Mockingbird," "Clara's Heart") directs "Summer of '42," keeping a sharp eye on period detail and the comic potential of growing up, the latter keenly observed in the marvelous performances of Grimes, Jerry Houser and Oliver Conanct as a "terrible trio" of fast friends. The film's look is distinctly '40s, lovingly photographed by three-time Oscar winner Robert Surtees. And " "sexual panic and fistfights and nosebleeds are treated with the great comic respect they deserve" (Vincent Canby, The New York Times). "We were different then," Hermie recalls. But not so different that we can't find our own laughter and memories within the "Summer of '42.".