Last Summer (1969)

From IMDB: “This coming of age drama is about four friends living on an island who meet on the beach. As they discover sex and each other they are at times brave, kind and considerate. However at other times a darker side to their nature appears and they are cowardly, selfish and cruel.”

Never released on DVD or Laserdisc, I recently acquired a decent 1985 VHS copy of this movie. It stars a very young Barbara Hershey, along with Richard Thomas and Bruce Davison. Catherine Burns also stars, and received an Oscar nomination for her performance.

Roger Ebert had this to say: “As Last Summer opens we are introduced to three affluent teen-agers, two boys and a girl, who are spending the summer on Fire Island with their parents. Sandy, the girl, is more familiar and experienced with sex than the boys, or so she would have them believe. The two boys are, naturally, unsure of themselves. They are not men and yet must be concerned with manhood. In the hot sun, during the long summer, the three friends circle the knowledge of sex like skittish colts. But the movie is not really about them. It is about Rhoda, a plump and painfully idealistic girl from Ohio, who is also staying on the island. She forces herself into the group, her loneliness overcoming her shyness. And although she seems the most insecure of them all, she is the only one who knows her own mind and whose decisions are not determined by insecurity...”