Summer of '42 (1971) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	Main Menu Audio Biographies-Cast & Crew Notes-Awards Theatrical Trailer
Rating
Year Of Production	1971
Running Time	103:52
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4	Directed By	Robert Mulligan
Studio Distributor	Warner Home Video	Starring	Jennifer O'Neill Gary Grimes Jerry Houser Oliver Conant Katherine Allentuck Christopher Norris Lou Frizzell
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$29.95	Music	Michel Legrand

Video (NTSC)		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s) French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s)
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	480i (NTSC)
Original Aspect Ratio	1.85:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English French Spanish Portuguese Japanese Chinese Thai Korean	Smoking	Yes
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

    This is an autobiographical true story of a boy's coming of age in the Summer of '42. The screenplay is written by Herman Raucher, and it is based on his book of the same name.

    Hermie (Gary Grimes) is a 15 year old boy spending his summer holiday with his friends Oscy (Jerry Houser) and Benjie (Oliver Conant) on an island off the coast of New England. They spend their days at the beach, eating ice cream, staring at girls bathing, and desperately trying to acquire sex education from stealing their parents' books.

    One day Hernie spies a young woman (Jennifer O'Neill) living in a beach house with her husband. He becomes infatuated with her, especially since her husband leaves shortly thereafter to join the war as a soldier.

    One day, he notices her having problems carrying two heavy grocery bags from the local store. He offers to carry the bags for her. She is grateful and offers him a cup of coffee. He learns that her name is Dorothy.

    Shortly after that, Dorothy asks Hermie if he doesn't mind moving some large boxes into the attic for her and their friendship deepens.

    In the meantime, Oscy is doing his best to lose his virginity with a girl he met at the movies - Miriam (Christopher Norris). He sets up a double date and pairs Hermie with another girl called Aggie (Katherine Allentuck). However, Hermie keeps thinking of Dorothy.

    One day, Hermie decides to visit Dorothy at her house but discovers that something terrible has happened ...

    This is a sweet and unassuming story that many people will identify with. It's probably a bit slow moving by today's standards but if you have fond memories of watching it in the 70s then you may want to check this DVD out.

Video

    The transfer is in widescreen 1.78:1 and is 16x9 enhanced. The intended aspect ratio is presumably 1.85:1, based on a 35mm film source. The video format is NTSC rather than PAL.

    Given that the story is about the nostalgic recollections of Herman's boyhood, the filmmakers has opted for a very soft, diffused, low contrast look. And that is precisely what the transfer gives us.

    So don't adjust your contrast settings, don't complain, this is exactly how the film is supposed to look.

    The use of filters and soft lenses means the overall picture is not only soft, but rather "cloudy" with smeared luminance and reduced colour saturation/contrast levels.

    Grain is quite prominent during the opening titles, but I suspect that is intentional. Grain is also present in the rest of the film, but at fairly minor and non-annoying levels.

    The film source appears to be relatively clean, marred only by the occasional black blob and various white scratches.

    There are a number of subtitle tracks: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, Chinese, Thai, and Korean. In addition, NTSC closed captions are also available if your display device supports it. I turned on both closed captions and the English subtitle track. The closed captioned subtitles are marginally more accurate (and include hearing impaired features such as dialogue attribution and non-verbal captioning).

    This is a single sided single layered disc.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    There are two audio tracks on the disc: English Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s), and French Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s).

    The mono English soundtrack is okay, but not exceptional.

    Dialogue was reasonably clear throughout, and there were no issues with audio synchronization.

    The audio track did not sound too "thin", but extreme low and high frequencies have been attenuated.

    The original music score is by Michel Legrand, and the opening title theme, which is a piano instrumental supported by a light orchestral arrangement, should be familiar to many. The background music is mostly the title theme repeated over and over again in different variations and orchestral arrangements.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Extras are fairly minimal.

Menu

    The menus are 16x9 enhanced but static. The main menu includes background audio.

Biographies-Cast & Crew

    This contains biographical stills for the following cast and crew:

• Jennifer O'Neill ("Dorothy")
• Gary Grimes ("Hermie")
• Robert Mulligan (director)

Notes- Awards

    This is a single still documenting an Academy Award and British Academy Award (both for the film score) given to the film.

Theatrical Trailer (1:04)

    This is presented in 1.78:1 (16x9 enhanced) and Dolby Digital 1.0 (192Kb/s).

    This is a Warner NTSC re-release of the R1 disc into R4, therefore the two versions are identical.

    Summer of '42 is a nostalgic story of an eventful summer in a boy's life when he became a man and fell in love for the first time.

    The video transfer is okay.

    The audio transfer is okay.

    Extras are minimal.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall