From time to time, Hollywood produces a masterpiece of a film. The audience congratulates the writer and director for the film's message. Of course, the critical adulations are as many as the various reasons of why the film succeeded. Different groups applaud the film and few if any ever see the subtle lie woven intricately within the story. Such is the way with the film " Summer of 42'. " The movie itself is offered as a heartwarming story of a young, beautiful and lonely wife, waiting patiently for her soldier husband fighting the good fight in Europe during the summer of 1942. Woven into her lonely vigil is a young fifteen year old boy who's summer vacation is made a little more enticing by the fact, the woman in question finds favor in the hormone driven lad. Feminists see the woman as needing love and comfort and accepts the fact the youth conveniently fills that need. Teenage boys see nothing wrong with the union as nothing more than a physical act of opportunity. But for men of reality, this film is nothing more than blatant hypocrisy. When an older woman allows a young man to join her in bed, feminists, sigh and say how romantic. Yet, others view it as further proof of a double standard imposed on men who wish the same privilege without deterrent of law. If the roles of this film were reversed, an adult man, sleeping with a young teenage girl, those same feminists would be screaming, "Child molester!" "Lolita lover!" If the viewer proceeds further, those same women who love this film and easily accept the romantic affair and see nothing wrong with it, why then do they see the same romance between a man and a young girl, (when the wife is out of the way) as nothing short of rape? Could it be, one needs to be Gary Grimes before feminists concede the point? If not; this film, should be relegated to the graveyard of feminine hypocrisy, wherein lie other such films like "Bridges of Madison County, and Birth." Touching as Robert Mulligans' 1971 film is and sympathetic as Jennifer O'Neill's character is, one either accept this film as romantic or nothing less than feminine child molestation. **
Review of Summer of '42
