Notes on A Summer Place

by Liz Locke, CinemaSips.com

When I think about bad moms, my mind immediately goes to A Summer Place, one of the most melodramatic soap operas ever to grace the silver screen.  This film has it all—teen lust, alcoholics, saucy old ladies, infidelity, and (be-still my heart) a Frank Lloyd Wright house.  But what makes it stand out from all the other Douglas Sirk-wannabes of the 1950s is Constance Ford as the villainous Helen Jorgenson.  If she were alive today, I could picture a MAGA hat sitting atop Helen’s polished blonde head while she screams at a Trump rally for immigrants to go home.  No nationality is safe from her wrath, not even the Swedes. And ooh does it burn her to be married to someone of Swedish descent, a man who’s liable to practice free love and communal bathing.  Because when you boil it all down, that’s Helen’s real problem—S.E.X.

Released in 1959, A Summer Place shows surprising sympathy toward teenagers struggling with their sexual urges.  We don’t fault Helen’s daughter Molly (Sandra Dee) for losing her virginity to summer love Johnny (Troy Donahue) because she’s just doing what comes natural.  It’s Helen, and her puritanical views, that come across as unnatural.  She’s a monster in an A-line dress, so mean and judgmental that she drives her husband into the arms of Johnny’s mother, and her daughter straight into Johnny’s horny embrace. And if that isn’t bad enough, Helen also has to go and ruin Christmas.  Distraught that Molly and Johnny have just snuck off again, she shoves the girl into a plastic Christmas tree, prompting the line that makes me cackle with glee, “Merry Christmas, Mama.” John Waters would later satirize this scene in Female Trouble, but I urge viewers to check out the original.  Not even Divine and those cha-cha heels can compete with the unintentional camp of A Summer Place.

Although Helen herself isn’t much of a drinker (that honor goes to Johnny’s dad, the perma-lush character actor Arthur Kennedy), I like to imagine that if she did indulge once in a while, she’d do it with a white wine spritzer.  Light and refreshing, it’s still the summertime drink for upper-class ladies who lunch and play bridge.  So let’s rebel a little bit, perhaps have an extra glass or two, while we curse the Helens of the world. May they be left broke and alone with only their bitter hatred to keep them company.  Cheers!

White Wine Spritzer
3 oz Chilled White Wine 
1 oz Club Soda
Lime wedges
Ice

Fill a wine glass with ice, then pour in the white wine.  Top with club soda, and garnish with lime wedges.