This porno riff on the hit SUMMER OF '42 coulda been a contender, had only they paid more attention to casting. With two weak leads (both one-shots), the intended romance evaporates.
Attractively photographed on Fire Island, the film's first defect is a variable sound approach -in early scenes much of the dialog is crudely dubbed in as voice-overs, though eventually there are pro direct-sound stagings. This detracts from that all-important sense of it being a "real film", rather than just porn filler.
Story carefully apes the classic Herman Raucher formula of the original. David Hunter and Eric Edwards are spending their summer vacation from school on the F.I. beach, constantly ogling the young married lady Laura (Marsha Moon), especially when she is making love to her husband Wade Nichols.
They are also dating Kim Pope and Helen Madigan, with a fairly amusing sex in the cinema staging when they double date to go see the porn hit IT HAPPENED IN Hollywood (and we see film clips from same).
Just as Raucher originally wrote it, Nichols goes off to war and Hunter gets it on with Moon. Cue the soft focus and violins.
SUMMER OF '42 was a big, big hit (standing in line variety) and much of its success was due to the inspired casting of model Jennifer O'Neill in the central role (plus that wonderful Michel Legrand musical score). O'Neill was later a standout in Visconti's THE INNOCENT, but it is this iconic role that places her firmly in movie history, the way Keir Dullea will always be remembered for 2001.
In SUMMER OF LAURA, however, Moon is a blank. She's not very pretty, has a subpar figure, and is limited as an actress. Filmmaker David Davidson needed a true discovery to bowl the fans over, and he came up with a zero. It's not surprising his career went nowhere too.
Young lead actor Hunter is likewise a nonentity, generally wiped off the screen by co-star Edwards in every scene. Obviously in the original film Gary Grimes did a good job but failed to achieve stardom, but there is no comparison here. And to give the minority view, I was a fan in the '70s of Grimes, dutifully attending the films he starred in and enjoying them, including the John Wayne vehicle CAHILL U.S. MARSHALL, the sequel to '42 titled CLASS OF '44, and especially the underrated and forgotten THE SPIKES GANG.
Coming out of the film unscathed is cinematographer Steve Colwell, who I nominate for a retrospective. He shot several Chuck Vincent films before a string of mid-'70s winners, all in the romantic genre and featuring overlapping casts (Edwards is in all four): Vincent's MRS. BARRINGTON, Roberta Findlay's THE CLAMDIGGER'S DAUGHTER, Joe Sarno's CONFESSIONS OF A YOUNG American HOUSEWIFE, and then SUMMER OF LAURA. All have dreamy, atmospheric location photography and would fit together nicely on an adventurous film festival program.
