Last Summer

Last Summer is a 1969 American drama about three teenagers who spend their summer vacation on Fire Island and form an intense, exclusive bond. Peter, Dan and Sandy meet on the beach, rescue an injured gull and become inseparable, filling their days with shared experiments and games. Their closeness is disrupted when Rhoda, a shy and well-behaved girl staying on the island with her parents, tries to join the group. The trio respond by devising an elaborate plan against her, and the story moves toward a violent outcome.

The film was directed by Frank Perry, following his 1968 film The Swimmer and preceding Doc, Skag, Mommie Dearest, Compromising Positions and Hello Again. Eleanor Perry wrote the screenplay, and Sidney Beckerman, Alfred W. Crown and Emanuel L. Wolf produced it for Allied Artists Pictures, Alsid Productions and Francis Productions. Barbara Hershey plays Sandy, Richard Thomas plays Peter, Catherine Burns plays Rhoda, Bruce Davison plays Dan, and Ernesto Gonzalez appears as Anibal. It runs 95 minutes.

On IMDb, the film holds a rating of 6.9 from around 2,400 votes, while on TMDB it stands at 6.2 from a much smaller base of about 51 votes. The two figures are close, though the larger IMDb sample suggests a reasonably settled level of approval among viewers who have sought the film out over the decades.