Summer of '42:
a very good year
Review by
Jim Gray
In the celluloid jungle of the
movie world, it's not too often
that a truly outstanding movie
comes along. So, when one does
come along, it's really
something to shout about.
Without a doubt, such is the
case with Summer of '42.
CENTERED AROUND the
sexual awakening of a
15-year-old boy in 1942, the
film is, to say the least, , a
masterpiece of human emotion.
Touching on experiences
all-too-familiar to all of us, the
movie is at the same time both
screamingly funny and
uncomfortably painful.
Set on an island vaction
community in 1942, the movie
is deeply entrenched in pieces of
period nostalgia, all the way
from two-tone suded coats to
Bette Davis movies. Never,
however is the sense of nostalgia
overbearing, playing only a
secondary role in the movie.
The tightly-knit plot
concerns itself with a boy by the
name of Hermie who,
predictably, falls in love. Also
predictable is the fact that he
falls in love with an older
woman.
Even more predictable is the
fact that the older woman is
married, to a soldier who goes
LeMans: smooth-running
Review by
BILL WALLIS
LeMans is a race-track
documentary interrupted by
vague, behind-the-scene,
romantic sequences involving
rugged, handsome, craggy -faced
Steve McQueen and gentle,
lovely, exquisite-faced Elga
Andersen.
There are two themes: the
competition between men to
with the race; and the
competition of women with the
race (that "professional blood
sport," where "it can happen to
you. ..and happen to you
again") for the lives of the men.
The most obvious and
rewarding theme to which the
documentary might have lent
itself is that of man's
competition with the
mechanical monsters he has
created, man's will to survive
the types of sport his
competitive nature has created
in the machine age. It did not.
The story is simple. As the
tension of the race builds, the
tension builds in the
relationship of two would-be
(or ex-) lovers. (Apparently her
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away to war no less. And of
course, the husband is killed in
action.
THE INEVITABLE
seduction finally does occur, as
the woman looks to the only
source of attachment she still
has.
Agreed, the plot is nothing
new. Scripts like this are a dime
a dozen in the movie world.
What really sells the story is the
approach.
Attacking the topic of sexual
awakening with a deft scalpel.
Director Robert Mulligan does
an impeccable job of exploring
the nooks and crannies of the
human sexual being. Using
all-but-trite situations, Mulligan
successfully portrays the
frustrations, worries, fears and
insecurity of a young person's
sexual awakening, with a
shocking accuracy.
Further, the movie points
up the ridiculous duplicity of
society's attitudes toward the
adolescent-on one side urging
the youngster into sexual
experiences through
braggadocio and the myth of
"manhood", on the other side
looking down on his
frustrations with the antiseptic
sneer of a drugstore man.
TECHNICALLY the film is
excellent. The costumes are
vibrant and exciting, the
husband was killed a year ago in
a crash that involved McQueen.
As the race is won, the tension
between the two subsides, and
she finally smiles at him through
the crowd, and all ends well.
The documentary portions
of the film are quite realistic and
excellent. The camera places the
viewer in the driver's seat for
front and rear-view (mirror)
shots in the cars following and
preceding the pack, and from
pratically every desirable angle.
Most effective are the several
slow-motion sequences of the
accidents. One, an
instantaneous re-living of the
accident, which has just
happened, in the mind of the
driver (McQueen), is simply
excellent and very effective.
The viewer is overwhelmed
by the remarkable force of the
mechanical beats shooting
down the tree-lined tunnels at
250 m.p.h., and is terrorized by
the beast when human control is
lost andmagnificent machines in
seconds become piles of
splintered fiberglass and steel.
In one sequence, an injured driver
runs from his wrecked auto and
is literally blown into the air by
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Jennifer O'Neal and
sexuality in Summer of
Michael Legrand score moodily
magnicicient, the color
photography artistically
brilliant and the soundtrak
well-paced and varied.
The acting is also extremely
overpowering, with Jennifer
O'Neal givi.-.fc i.V performance
of a lifetime as the boy's
love-object. Equally stellar in
his performance is Gary Grimes
as the pubescent Hermie.
machine
the explosion of the gas tank.
LeMans is effective
documentary. It is a story of
racing, and viewed as such it is
quite good. Don't expect art,
just a smooth-running machine
of a film that never loses
control.
Bergman's "Anna"
opens film season
The Passion of Anna, an
Ingmar Bergman film, will be
shown at 7 and 9 p.m. on
Wednesday, September 22, for
members of the Nebraska
Union Foreign Film Society at
the Nebraska Theatre.
The film stars Liv Ullman,
Bibi Anderson a.:d Max von
Sydow and is a study of
behavior.
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Gary Grimes.. .provide a nostalgic picture of awakening
'42.
In the minor characters is
where the film does fall down,
however, lacking somewhat in
depth of portrayal in all but the
two leads.
Intentional or not, this lack
of depth gives the viewer the
feeling that the two are the only
people in the film capable of
feeling, which very much
impairs the feeling of
universality the movie tries to
jjticEi Tifn
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present. ("In everyone's life,
there's a Summer of '42.")
EVEN SO the movie does
manage to come through loud
and clear. After viewing the
movie one comes out with the
uncomfortable feeling of
viewing oneself in a mirror, if
darkly. And that makes
Summer of '42 an experience to
remember, which in the movie
world is something rare
nowadays.
icidll
I Grove
MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 20, 1971
THE DAILY NEBRASKAN
PAoE 9
