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.