Last Summer (1969)

 

Horror cinema is about Evil, but generally not about realistic Evil, and even when it is, it’s concerned with Individual Evil with little concern for the Evils of a larger Society that breeds those Individual Evils. Films about the Jewish Holocaust of WWII don’t make any the Horror Genre’s “Best Horror” lists for the obvious reason that it would be super-tacky, but can you think of a greater Horror?

 

Horror is primarily concerned with Grandiose Evil (“Dracula” (1931)), Pitiable Evil (“Frankenstein” (also 1931)), and Evil Born of Mental Illness “Psycho” and “Peeping Tom” (both 1960) but has little concern with the Banality of Evil, a term coined by Philosopher Hanna Arendt and nicely summarized by later Philosopher Justin Richards, “a belief that what one is doing is not evil, rather, what they are engaging in is a behavior that is, or has been, normalized by the society in which they reside.” Horror films are filled with Nazi Villains, but Grandiose ones, so a bunch of non-Undead Draculas, not miserably bland Villains like Adolf Eichmann (who inspired Arendt to coin the term) or the more charismatic, but keep-your-hands-clean, Villains that men like Eichmann served.

 

Oh, there are exceptions, “Witchfinder General” (1969), “The Wickerman” (1973), “The Stepford Wives” (1975), but generally the Banality of Evil is left to SF and Social Realism (note: “Witchfinder General” is loosely based on Historical Events and “The Stepford Wives” is SF/Horror).

 

That is why this Slow-Burn Horror is not generally acknowledged as such. It concerns a corrosive, Cult-like dynamic, where three-teens find themselves infatuated with a fourth, a beautiful and manipulative girl named Sandy (Barabara Hersey) who convinces them to follow her into depravity. Teenage lust is the driving distraction for the two boys, as Peter (Richard Thomas) and Dan (Bruce Davison), while the odd-duck of the group, a far plainer and more thoughtful girl, Rhoda (Catherine Burns) is only suffered under the lust to belong. Sandy is basically a mini-Hitler who looks great in a bikini, seducing all three to surrender their Moral Restraints to earn her smile and her barley-delivered physical affections. Rhoda remains slightly on the outside of this increasingly smothering Group-Think, and when Sandy goes too far, Rhoda modestly rebels.

 

When you say no to Hitler, you pay a terrible price.

 

The cruelest thing in this film isn’t the Crime committed against Rhoda, it’s how the Perpetrators casually walk away from her and the credits roll right there. There’s a strong sense that there is no Justice coming, that our little Hitler and her little Eichman’s will just take a shower, forget about what they’ve done, and never face any consequences. Had Hitler won WWII, there would’ve been no “Eichman in Jerusalem” (title of Arendt’s account of Eichman’s Trial published in 1963) and even though there was a Trail, Conviction, and Death Sentence, when Eichman walked to the Gallows it was clear he still didn’t get that Genocide is Villainy.

 

“Last Summer” is based on easily the best novel (published in 1968) by the famous Author Evan Hunter aka Ed McBain. His output covers most Genres but mostly falls into two categories: Naturalism/Realism (as Hunter), and Crime, especially Police Procedurals (as McBain). This Horror, laden with Crimes, belongs among the Naturalistic/Realistic works.  

 

The bold script was Authored by Elanor Perry and its rare as it so deliberately induced discomfort in the audiences. We get to know, like, and identify with the central Characters before the film shows most of them to be Monsters. It seems to only have been produced because of the Screenwriter’s special synergy with her then-husband, Director Frank Perry. During their decade of marriage, they collaborated on more than a half-dozen challenging Dramas, at least three were Oscar-nominated, that explored relationships, a woman’s status in our society, and the darker aspects of sex-roles. After their 1971 divorce, films based on Elanor’s scripts became fewer while Frank’s output remained steady for more than a decade, though Frank’s later out-put included such utter trash as “Mommy Dearest” (1981) and “Monsignor” (1982).

 

The book and film concerned the dangers of leaving children unsupervised and allowed to make adult decisions without any guidance or experience to look to, but there’s no moralizing like in an “ABC After School Special” (TV series first aired 1972). It was less interested in Judgment than Analyzing, dissecting as it sets the four youths down a path where Innocent Amorality degenerates into Violent Depravity because the group, or at least most of them, have become Intoxicated with the dream of life without Consequentialism. It begins with the beautiful Utopia preached so enthusiastically during “The Summer of Love” (1967), then slowly shows that it was all a lie (as the poster Tag-Line reads, "Too beautiful to forget... and too painful to remember."). I think it’s significant that the film was released only two months before the Mason Family Killing Spree began; or as Author Joan Didion wrote, “Many people I know in Los Angeles believe that the Sixties ended abruptly on August 9, 1969.”

 

Given how beautifully it begins and how darkly it ends, it could be obnoxiously called “‘Giget’ gone bad” (book, film, and TV franchise staring in 1959) but was, without doubt, more deeply observed than almost all other media concerning those handful of vital years that we call Adultescence. It inspired Critic Roger Ebert to write one of his most elegant reviews and I’ll share some of his observations here:

 

“From time to time you find yourself wondering if there will ever be a movie that understands life the way you've experienced it. There are good movies about other people's lives … but rarely a movie that recalls, if only for a scene or two, the sense and flavor of life the way you remember it.

 

“For three or four years, every day had a newness and unfamiliarity to it, and you desperately wanted to act in a way that seemed honorable to yourself. Even if you didn't read Thomas Wolfe you were more idealistic than you were ever likely to be again ...

 

“But on top of the desire to be brave and honorable, there was also the compelling desire to be accepted, to be admitted to membership in that adolescent society defined only by those excluded from it. Because you were insecure, like all teenagers still groping for a style and a philosophy, you tended to value other people's opinions above your own. If everybody else disagreed with you, then how could you be right? And so sometimes you repressed your own feelings, rather than risk being shut out ...

 

“[I]t is one of the finest, truest, most deeply felt movies in my experience.”

 

What Ebert saw is how perfect was the Paradise, making its loss so much more painful. There’s an exquisite scene where Rhoda is taught to swim by Peter; afterwards, they realize they have an emotional connection greater than the foursomes Group-Think. The scene promised a believable and beautiful ending, but that didn’t happen.

 

When the darkness falls, we see that this film, devoid of any Political -isms or affirmations, had explored fully how the wants of Youth are the fertile soil from which the Hitler Youth sprang.

 

The film was initially X-rated, but it came at a special time in Hollywood, when an “X-rating” meant strongly provocative Maturity (or at least the attempt at it) not Porn. It was part of a short-lived trend where Explicitness wanted to be more than mere Exploitation but a form of Frankness. Related films included John Schlesinger’s “Midnight Cowboy,” Haskell Wexler’s “Medium Cool” (both 1969, as is this film), Stanely Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” (1971), and Bernardo Bertolucci’s “Last Tango in Paris” (1972). The futileness of this trend’s great ambitions is demonstrated by this list. Yes, “Midnight Cowboy” is just as worthy as “Last Summer,” but “Medium Cool” is a beautiful ruin of a Director’s grasp being beyond his reach, “A Clockwork Orange” is over-rated and wallowing in empty nihilism, and worst of all was the wildly pretentious “Last Tango in …” which had nothing at all to say except that it thought it was Brave and Artistic and we now know that Director Bertolucci encouraged 45-year-old Actor Marlon Brando to spring a particularly raw, though simulated, Rape-scene on 19-year-old Actress Maria Schneider who wasn’t informed of beforehand so Bertolucci could get more convincing reaction shot. Schneider said she was left traumatized.

 

Even this film, a small masterpiece, undercuts the ambitions of the short-lived trend. By removing only a few frames of the most shocking scene, the Rating dropped from X to R with (according to the few Critics who saw both) no impact being lost, a few more cuts it dropped to PG and available for TV airing with the effect only slightly muted (I’ve seen but the R & PG versions, I don’t believe the X is still in distribution).

 

This was one of the Perry’s films that got Academy recognition, with Burns being nominated for Best Supporting Actress largely on the strength on one monologue. The children are experimenting with pot and the pre-existing threesome draw Rhoda into their circle by pressuring her to tell "the worst thing" in her life; this proves to be her memories of the drowning death of her mother, not a suicide, but caused by her mother’s Decadent Self-Indulgences. That’s where Rhoda differs from the others, she has a sense of Consequentialism beyond her age, that’s why she keeps throwing cold water on the others’ Dangerous Fun.

 

The scene also realizes the Fake Moralities of the Entitled. Rhoda earns their (temporary) compassion only by preforming for them. The initial three first bonded over an act of Virtue, saving a wounded seagull, but when the seagull doesn’t live up to expectations, Sandy Murders it. Rhoda is the new seagull; too bad she didn’t see that.

 

All but Rhoda thinks that they are good because they are groovy. Even before the climax the main three display casual cruelties and unconscious but undeniable Racism, and sometimes Rhoda engages in this with the other three.  Critic Ken Anderson nailed it in a half-sentence, “The tissue-thin myths we harbor about everything from sexual politics to racism.”

 

All the Actors give naturalistic and complex Performances, though only Heresy (then-21) and Thomas (then-18) had significant experience at this point (mostly TV). This was Davison’s first screen credit, and older than the other two (then-23) even though he looked younger. Burns was the oldest of them all (then-24), but played the youngest of the foursome and this was only her second screen credit.

 

Critic Vincent Canby praised the Performances, "variously awkward and strident, dense and dumb, and sometimes very innocent, without ever being self-conscious about it."  Critic Richard Schickel wrote the Characters are "constructed not out of social science statistics...but of flesh and blood … in a film of very subtle dynamics, wonderfully sensitive to the endless, unannounced shiftings of adolescent moods." 

 

Burns is rightfully the most praised but Hershey is worthy of note because she never lets Sandy degenerate into cliché. Before Character Rhoda is introduced, we see how deftly Sandy rearranges the power dynamic, establishing that she’s the one who gets to call the shots, and that is handled with great subtly.

 

I don’t want to suggest that she, in the Real-World, in anyway echoed this Dream Girl Psychopath, but she was clearly internalized the role. For a short while she changed her stage name to “Seagull” alleging that the Spirt of a bird accidently killed during the production had entered her body. She was very much the Hippie Dreamer at the time, naming her son “Free” and burying his after-birth beneath an apricot tree as part of some Ritual (she changed her stage-name, she embraced more Conventional name for her son soon after). Hershey said of Director Perry, “I think Frank was encouraging us more to be into our characters than to bond. He was sort of isolating us from our lives. We had interaction with each other, but it wasn’t like we were a close-knit group.”

 

Strangely, the most honored cast member of this landmark film would have the shortest career; more and better parts were offered to Davison, Heresy, and Thomas, and even and even middle-aged Ralph Waite as  Character Peter’s father (he later played Actor Thomas’ father again on TV’s “The Walton’s” (first aired 1971) and Davison and Burns both made guest appearances on the show).

 

Meanwhile Burns made only a total of three feature films, then switched to TV, then retired from acting in 1981.

 

Author Hunter penned a sequel, “Come Winter” (1973) and had worked on a screenplay version but it was never produced.

 

Trailer:

Last Summer - Classic Movie Trailer - YouTube