Summer Children (1965) (Restored)

Directed by James Bruner
Cinematography by Vilmos Zsigmond
Starring Stuart Anderson, John Hanek, and Valora Noland
Runtime 84min. - Not Rated
3.5 Stars (out of 4)

Coming soon to the IndieRights collection. A huge thanks to Nelson-Madison Films for my advance copy. For more information about this film's resurrection, visit their
Official Webpage.

"Summer Children" is a film you shouldn't be watching. I don't say that because of its content. When the filming was finished in 1964 it never got the wide distribution it deserved. It was stored away and mostly forgotten. The years went by and the filmmakers eventually concluded it was lost. But it wasn't. After some research they located the negatives and set about to restoring them for disc and digital formats. What this amounts to for movie nerds is the cinematic equivalent of buried treasure.


There's a name you may not know that lends the film instant credibility; Vilmos Zsigmond. He's a famous cinematographer. For casual movie fans, the cinematographer (or director of photography) is the person who actually controls the cameras. The director gets the final say, but a director's career can made or broken by their cinematographer. Vilmos Zsigmond is a guy who can make careers. He's made a few films whose names you might recognize: "Deliverance", "The Black Dahlia", "The Deer Hunter","Close Encounters of the Third Kind". The last of which earned him an Oscar. "Summer Children" represents some of his earliest American work and should be regarded as cinematic history if nothing else.

I've read some reviews that summarily say the film is only valuable for its pretty pictures. I didn't find that to be the case at all. As a whole, I thought the film beautifully portrayed culture. The fashion, the music, and the language worked together to suck me into the 60's. A band called "The Deacons" are responsible for most of the soundtrack. They have a certain surf-rock feel not unlike "Jan and Dean" or "The Beach Boys". Besides the cinematography (and the girls), the songs are the strongest part of the film.

The story follows a summer getaway on a yacht. There are several folks on this yacht, but two characters stand above the rest. There's our protagonist, West (Anderson), who has a stick up his ass for the majority of the trip, and the antagonist, Franky (Hanek), who would probably be more likable with a stick up his ass. The two of them compete for the attention of Diana (Nolan), who acts as a siren on this odyssey of lust. For some reason Franky and West are best friends. They live by completely different moral codes and it seems impossible that there was a time they got along. Being stuck on a boat or island is difficult with someone you love. The effect is amplified when it's someone you clash with. I have to really question West's decision-making skills due to him inviting Franky along.

Franky is the most consistent character in this love triangle. He's an ass every second of the day. By comparison, West and Diana are terribly conflicted. West is so condemning of Franky's lack of ethics that he occasionally refuses to be seen with him. That righteousness is nowhere to be found when a hooker appears and removes her blouse. Diana tries hard to be a woman of substance. She's in a constant struggle against superficiality and promiscuity. It takes quite an effort for West to seduce Diana. Eventually they make love on the beach with the moonlight reflecting off her bare breasts. As West nods off she tells him she'll be "right back". Instead, she drops her towel and runs naked down the beach and into the arms of another. Later we find her fulfilling a rape fantasy with Franky. The dichotomy is startling.

The scene I just mentioned also highlights a continuity and motivation problem. In the course of a few frames Diana goes from being nude on the beach, to fully-clothed at a dance party. There's no explanation given on the logistics of this transition. In addition to the logistics, the logic is a mystery as well. Was Diana not satisfied with her oceanfront orgasm? Why does she instantly want to cheat on West? Would does her desire for intimacy suddenly turn into animal-lust and violent fetishes? I do applaud the filmmakers for exploring these topics though. In 1965 the current MPAA ratings hadn't been created and the old production code was nearing its end. Distributors must have been weary of this censorship evolution. That may have been a factor in "Summer Children's" long imprisonment in film vaults.

The biggest complaint I have is with the dialogue. Entire conversations are sometimes formed from wisecracks alone. Everything has a hidden meaning. That meaning gets hidden deeper with each sentence. When the conversations run long enough the meaning is so buried that you lose it altogether.

It goes without saying that the cinematography is awesome. Not in the "Bill and Ted" sense, I mean it truly inspires awe. Sunsets and silhouettes may have the most visual impact in the film, but aren't sunsets always pretty? What impresses me more is the use of space. There's only so much room for cameras on a boat, yet the angles are always dynamic. The lighting and exposure are also something to behold. I mentioned the moonlight reflecting off the bare breast of a beautiful woman. I don't think moonlight is actually bright enough to do that. It's more likely the work of clever artificial lighting and composition. There's a particular scene where the light source is coming through blinds. The character's eyes are right in the middle of a row of intense light. His emotional state is being intensely communicated from his eyes alone thanks to the technique. It's the sort of brilliance that can be found in nearly every frame. A gallery of screenshots from "Summer Children" would hold more artistic value than the majority of today's theatrical releases viewed in their entirety.

(Wow. Did I just write that? I'm sure I'll have to defend that sentence at some point.)

The women in this film are absolutely gorgeous and they know how to flaunt it. The restoration is so good that I fool myself into thinking the film is modern. Unfortunately, it's not modern and these women are 45 years older than they appear on screen. It's sort of like when you objectify a lovely young lady and your friend says, "remember she's somebody's daughter". Except in this case you have to remind yourself that these girls are somebody's grandmother. It's a thought that will make your pants fit better instantly.

(What's wrong with me tonight? I hope no one reads this far.)

The film is said to draw inspiration from French "new wave" films of that era, though its characters are purely American. I'm familiar with the genre, but I haven't seen enough examples to consider myself literate on the topic. Even if I could analyze it in those terms I'd probably avoid doing so. A film deserves to be enjoyed and judged on its own merits in my opinion.

The rediscovery of "Summer Children" is not going to be embraced with the same fervor as the missing reels from "Metropolis". It is, however, a piece of history. It was stored and restored in such a way to leave the images nearly flawless. That's important for a film that hangs its hat on cinematography. You'd be hard pressed to find a piece of lint, scratch or cigarette burn on the print that I viewed. The marriage of French new wave and beach party cinema doesn't always work perfectly, but it's certainly an interesting case study. If you drop the historical and educational context, the film is still entertaining. It's a must for cinephiles, but adventure, violence, lust, betrayal and exotic locations make the film work for casual movie-goers as well. If you see this film, you can count yourself lucky in many ways.