A Summer Place (film)

A Summer Place is a 1959 romantic drama film based on Sloan Wilson's 1958 novel of the same name, about teenage lovers from different social classes who get back together twenty years later, and then must deal with the passionate love affair of their own teenage children by previous marriages. Delmer Daves directed the movie, which stars Richard Egan and Dorothy McGuire as the middle-aged lovers, and Troy Donahue and Sandra Dee as their children. The film contains a memorable instrumental theme composed by Max Steiner, which spent nine weeks at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart in 1960.

Plot

Alcoholic Bart Hunter (Arthur Kennedy), his long-suffering wife Sylvia (Dorothy McGuire), and their teenage son Johnny (Troy Donahue) operate a crumbling inn on Pine Island off the Maine coast. The inn was previously Bart's elegant family mansion in an exclusive resort, but as his family fortunes have dwindled, the Hunters are forced to rent rooms to paying guests, even going so far as to move themselves into the small guest house so their own master bedroom suite can be rented out. Bart receives a reservation request from an old acquaintance, Ken Jorgenson, who was a lowly lifeguard on the island twenty years ago, but is now a successful research chemist and millionaire. Ken wants to bring his wife and daughter to the island for the summer. Bart dislikes Ken and feels that Ken is just coming to lord his new wealthy status over Bart, who is no longer rich. Bart nearly refuses the request, but Sylvia insists that he accept because they badly need the money.

A Summer Place

A Summer Place is a 1958 novel by Sloan Wilson, a follow-on to The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit. The novel is about an adult couple who rekindle a long-ago summer romance that ended because of class differences, and their two teenage children from other marriages who also fall in love with each other. It was adapted into a 1959 film of the same name.

Plot summary

Two onetime teenage lovers, Ken Jorgenson and Sylvia Hunter, marry other people, but rediscover each other later in life. By then, Sylvia has a son, Johnny, and Ken a daughter, Molly, who also begin a romance.

While in college, the self-supporting Ken takes a summer job as a lifeguard on Pine Island, an exclusive Maine island resort, where Sylvia and her nouveau riche family are staying as guests of the old money owners. The rich young people at the resort mock Ken and exclude him from their social activities, considering him a lowly employee. Although Sylvia is strongly attracted to Ken, she feels pressure from her family and from her wealthy peers to reject the impoverished Ken and make a more suitable match with Bart Hunter, the son of a wealthy, established island family. Bart and Ken eventually come to blows over Sylvia, leading to Ken and Sylvia secretly consummating their love. Ken leaves the island for good at the end of the summer, and Sylvia marries Bart as her family wishes.

Percy Faith

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Percy Faith (April 7, 1908 – February 9, 1976) was a Canadian bandleader, orchestrator, composer and conductor, known for his lush arrangements of pop and Christmas standards. He is often credited with popularizing the "easy listening" or "mood music" format. Faith became a staple of American popular music in the 1950s and continued well into the 1960s. Though his professional orchestra-leading career began at the height of the swing era, Faith refined and rethought orchestration techniques, including use of large string sections, to soften and fill out the brass-dominated popular music of the 1940s.

Biography

Faith was born and raised in Toronto, Ontario. He was the oldest of eight children. His parents, Abraham Faith and Minnie née Rottenberg, were Jewish. He played violin and piano as a child, and played in theatres and at Massey Hall. After his hands were badly burned in a fire, he turned to conducting, and his live orchestras used the new medium of radio broadcasting.

Theme from A Summer Place

"Theme from A Summer Place" is a song with lyrics by Mack Discant and music by Max Steiner, written for the 1959 film A Summer Place, which starred Sandra Dee and Troy Donahue. It was recorded for the film as an instrumental by Hugo Winterhalter. Originally known as the "Molly and Johnny Theme", the piece is not the main title theme of the film, but a secondary love theme for the characters played by Dee and Donahue.

Following its initial film appearance, the theme has been recorded by many artists in both instrumental and vocal versions, and has also appeared in a number of subsequent films and television programs. The best-known cover version of the theme is an instrumental version by Percy Faith and his orchestra that was a Number One hit for nine weeks on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1960.

Percy Faith version

Percy Faith recorded the most popular version of the theme, an instrumental orchestral arrangement, at the Columbia 30th Street Studio in New York City, It was released in September 1959 as a single on Columbia Records, credited to "Percy Faith and his Orchestra", prior to the November 1959 release of the film A Summer Place.