You can certainly tell this is a Warner Brothers movie. It has no gloss or polish to it. The script is a mess and obvious plot contrivances are not even attempted to be explained. The beautiful theme music that came out of this film is only in the adolescent stage here. The music director did not take advantage of making this song more powerful, like any good scorer would. Percy Faith and the Lettermen charted in the top ten with this theme, taken directly from the movie, arranged brilliantly, and then performed by dozens of additional artists.
Warner Brothers missed every opportunity to stay realistic with a plot that was heavily tilted toward soap opera. The MGM of 1950 could have produced an epic with this because the talent existed behind the screen to make the movie into something special. WB just soaped it for all it was worth and ran with it. Jack Warner wanted profits. He did not care about quality or longevity.
Its puzzling how such a movie is still shown and remembered, but the theme inherent in the book was one that needed to be heard in 1959 into the sixties. It was very topical. Most any other major studio would have done such a better job with this project than Warners. It's really too bad -- this has all the bones of a great movie. Instead we get average to slightly above average.
Review of A Summer Place
A Summer Place
(1959)
A Topical Film with Great Potential -- Soaped to Death by Warners
12 July 2019