Last Summer is a 1969 coming-of-age movie about adolescent sexuality. Director Frank Perry

Frank Perry

Frank J. Perry, Jr. was an American stage and film director, producer and screenwriter. His directorial debut, the 1962 film David and Lisa, earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Director....

 filmed at Fire Island

Fire Island, New York

Fire Island is one of the outer barrier islands adjacent to the south shore of Long Island, New York. It is approximately long and varies between broad. Fire Island is part of Suffolk County. It comprises a number of hamlets, census-designated places , and villages, all of which lie within the...

 locations: the stars of the film are Catherine Burns

Catherine Burns

Catherine Burns is an American actress of stage, film, radio and television. She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Last Summer .-Career:...

, Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey

Barbara Hershey , also known as Barbara Seagull, is an American actress. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, she has played a variety of roles on television and in cinema, in several genres including westerns and comedies...

, Bruce Davison

Bruce Davison

Bruce Davison is an American actor and director.-Early life:Davison was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Marian E. , a secretary, and Clair W. Davison, a musician, architect, and draftsman for the Army Engineers. His parents divorced when he was three years old. He was raised by his...

 and Richard Thomas

Richard Thomas (actor)

Richard Earl Thomas is an American actor, best known for his role as budding author John-Boy Walton in the CBS drama The Waltons.- Early life :Thomas was born Richard Earl Thomas in New York,...

. The memorable performance by Burns brought her an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actress, and she won a Kansas City Film Critics Circle Award. Given an X rating when first released, Last Summer was given an R rating

R rating

R rating may refer to:*R - Motion Picture Association of America film rating system*R-value...

 after edits to a scene depicting rape. The cut version is the one seen in the videotape release.

Characters and story

Eleanor Perry

Eleanor Perry

Eleanor Perry was an American writer known primarily for her screenplays.Born Eleanor Irene Rosenfeld in Cleveland, Ohio, she attended Western Reserve University, where she wrote for the college's literary magazine. Together with her first husband, attorney Leo G...

's screenplay was based on the novel by Evan Hunter

Evan Hunter

Evan Hunter was an American author and screenwriter. Born Salvatore Albert Lombino, he legally adopted the name Evan Hunter in 1952...

, published in hardcover by Doubleday (1968) and paperback by Signet (1969). The film follows the random activities of four teens during a summer on Fire Island. Rhoda (Catherine Burns) is shy and overweight and targeted for teasing by the others. As sexual tensions increase, the more experienced and dominant Sandy (Barbara Hershey) encourages Dan (Bruce Davison) and Peter (Richard Thomas) to rape Rhoda.

Soundtrack

The film had a soundtrack LP (Warner Bros.-Seven Arts WS 1791) of the score composed by John Simon and Collin Walcott. Heard on the soundtrack: John Simon (piano), Collin Walcott (sitar, tamboura), Aunt Mary's Transcendental Slip and Lurch Band (rock band), Cyrus Faryar (voice), Buddy Bruno (voice), Ray Draper

Ray Draper

Raymond Allen Draper was an American hard bop tuba player.-Biography:Draper attended the Manhattan School of Music in the mid-1950s. As a leader, he recorded his first album, Tuba Sounds , at the age of 16, with a quintet...

(tuba, voice), Electric Meatball (rock band), Henry Diltz (banjo, voice), Bad Kharma Dan and the Bicycle Brothers (motorcycle gang).

External links

• Roger Ebert review
• Vincent Canby review