FAQ

During summer vacation on Nantucket Island (off the coast of Cape Cod) in 1942, 15-year-old Hermie (Gary Grimes) and his friends Oscy (Jerry Houser) and Benjie (Oliver Conant) ponder the possibilities of getting laid. While his friends look for conquests with girls of their age, Hermie is innocently attracted to an older woman, Dorothy (Jennifer O'Neill), whose husband has just gone off to fight in World War II. In order to be close to her, Hermie offers to help Dorothy with chores that she cannot do on her own, and Dorothy sees him as a young friend ...until things suddenly change.

The movie was filmed from a screenplay that was based on the memoirs of American author/screenwriter Herman Raucher, who also adapted the screenplay into a 1971 novelization of the film. It was followed by Class of '44 (1973) (1973).

The narrator is supposed to be grown-up Hermie (voiced by Robert Mulligan).

Hermie returns to Dorothy's cottage to find that she has moved away, but she's left a note to Hermie pinned on the door. She explains that she must return home to sort out her husband's business but says that she will never forget him and that he will find his way of remembering what happened that night. In the final scene, as Hermie sits on the beach looking at Dorothy's cottage, the narrator says, I was never to see her again nor was I ever to learn what happened to her. We were different. Kids were different. It took us longer to understand the things we felt. Life is made up of small comings and goings. And for everything we take with us, there is something we leave behind. In the Summer of '42, we raided the Coast Guard Station four times, we saw five movies and had nine days of rain. Benjie broke his watch, Oscy gave up the harmonica and, in a very special way, I lost Hermie. In the final scene, Hermie walks away, leaving only the sun shining on the beach and the ocean waves.