terrible... so disappointed.

Just perfect...

How sad is this?

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Funny how given the right musical score, narration, setting and actors...an adult having sex with a child is considered an 'awakening by some. Yes, I liked the movie years ago, but I know better now. Since the 70's, we better monitor such "splendor". The problem is that adults in the same situation can envision themselves in some kind of "Summer of 42", but all it is without the musical score and great feeling...is criminal activity.

In this 1971 Warner Brothers movie, set against the Nantucket Island backdrop of WWII, the nostalgia was great, strongly taking people back to the era of the early 40's. Nantucket was very appealing in this story, the coastal waters being very refreshing as well. As for the acting, Jennifer O'Neill portrayed so well the part of the lady with whom the young teenage boy became so taken. (Gary Grimes acted so well the part of the immature boy taken with her so strongly.) Jerry Houser was definitely an immature boy. But the storyline is not original. In their adolescent years, only a small number of boys do not find themselves fantasizing about some female they come upon and, as in this case, sometimes the women are too "old" for them; Grimes was a high school boy and O'Neill was somewhere in her middle 20's. In short, an adolescent boy meets an attractive older woman, he becomes strongly infatuated with her, and neither knows nor cares how the situation will resolve itself. The ending did and did not surprise me. To recapitulate, I was impressed with the nostalgia, the color and scenery were drawing, but the storyline was mediocre.

The last line of the film says it all... the teenage angst, the melancholia that the movie leaves behind, the longing for something better, more fulfilling, yes, even happiness. For me, it left the same feelings that the last episode of the "Wonder Years" TV show did -- life went on without the two who could have been the loves of their lives. "I was never to see her again. Nor was I ever to learn what became of her. We were different then. Kids were different. It took us longer to understand the things we felt. Life is made up of small comings and goings. And for everything we take with us, there is something that we leave behind. In the summer of '42, we raided the Coast Guard station four times, we saw five movies, and had nine days of rain. Benji broke his watch, Oscy gave up the harmonica, and in a very special way, I lost Hermie forever."

I recall seeing this movie, probably in the theater, back in the 1970s, but had not seen it since then. So I found the DVD at my public library and popped it in the BD player last night.I wasn't mature (old) enough the first time to really appreciate this movie. It is a lot funnier than I remember it, but funny in a truthful way, the way it depicts 15-yr-old boys, on summer vacation, and more than a bit obsessed with the female body and sex.Gary Grimes at 15 played 15-yr-old Hermie, and the movie is shown from his perspective. He is on the vacation east-coast island with his two buddies Oscy and Benjie. Typical of a boy that age (I seem to remember) he caught a glimpse of a lovely woman, Jennifer O'Neill, 22 during filming, as Dorothy who shared a cottage with her husband. He was smitten and of course, being basically a shy boy with no illusions that a lovely 22-yr-old would ever look twice at him, simply lived his fantasy in his mind.However as young luck ("when preparation and opportunity meet") would have it, Hermie happens upon Dorothy as she is coming out of the local grocery story, arms overladen with bags, and he offers to help and even carry them home for her. On a different day she asks him to help her place some boxes in the attic, all innocent on her part, but for Hermie it was almost like they were dating.The movie also has a few scenes with Hermie and Oscy meeting up with a couple of local girls, exploring their sexuality, but the main story is Hermie coming of age, so to speak.It is interesting that neither O'Neill nor Grimes achieved any particular acting fame after this, even though they are great here, in one of the more memorable movies of the 1970s. SPOILERS: As Dorothy and Hermie get to be better friends and more comfortable with each other, Hermie tells her he will visit one evening. As he gets there he sees a fresh telegram, it was wartime and her husband died in France. She was distraught, she needed some comfort and Hermie was the only one she could reach out to. She escorted him to the bedroom and they shattered his innocence. The next day when he went to the house he found a note on the door, she had left, and in an adult voice-over signifying some years later, Hermie says he never saw her again but that his old self also disappeared that summer.