Sorry I couldn't embed either of the 2 clips from the movie at youtube but they were disabled. If you want to take a look go there and you'll find them. But at least you can hear the theme song while reading.
This was a movie I found strange and dark and emotionally detached even as a child. It's the story (sort of) of Ken and Sylvia who were lovers as teens on this island resort off Maine. She was rich, he was the lifeguard hence unsuited for each other. Fast forward about 20 years. Now Ken's rich. Sylvia married the blue blood scion of the resort. The resort is broke and the scion is a drunk. Ken has a teen daughter (Geez, her name might as well be Kitty) but it's Molly. Sylvia has a son, Johnny (let's try to be a little creative) played by Troy Donahue.
Molly and Johnny repeat the love affair between Ken and Sylvia. Are ya still with me?
Here's where it gets dark and super unpleasant. Ken's wife/Molly's mother is Helen (played by Constance Ford). What you need to know about her character is that she's a frigid bitch. Not only is she a frigid bitch, she's more like the Piper Laurie character in the movie Carrie. This woman is psychologically unsound and dangerous.
Full. Stop. We just went right over the top.
Why. Why. Why. Is this in here? Because it was written by a man.
Just off the top of my head, Helen has been married for 20 years to a man who was in love with another woman. Do you think that fact could have possibly, conceivably, have anything to do with why Helen distanced herself emotionally from The Ken Doll?
Men used to love to portray women as frigid.
Time out for a short story. Picture me in college. Teacher is a bantam rooster of a man, I'm taller than he is. I'm hiding in the back row. Up front are the middle-aged women returning to college. They've seen life. They've seen it all. Teacher starts lecturing about some poet from the late 1500's or whatever and casually says he wrote this poem because his wife was frigid. Up front the biggest (and loudest) woman (Mrs. Dellabovi!! I remembered after all these years!) says "Maybe he just wasn't any good in bed." Cheers erupt. Class over. He learned his lesson.
I won't go into the whole loose women/sluts thing, let that be for another day. We'll just agree for our purposes here that women are the easiest target to label and destroy for a plot point. If you're not going to have the obligatory car runs over the dog scene.
So Ken and Sylvia start rutting in the boat house, just like old times. (Proving Helen correct, correct?) Apparently Johnny and Molly also rut at some point because she gets pregnant which admittedly was a big deal in the 1950s. Alles gut, endes gut (to borrow from Shakespeare). Helen gets a fat settlement in the divorce, Ken and Sylvia marry and Molly and Johnny can be together because they're really really in love.
This was a hit movie in its time, and referenced in Barry Levinson's excellent movie (that was a really good script) Diner.
Connie Ford went on to a long role on Another World (yes, I did write for AW but after she was gone). Everyone else continued to act which I always think is great. This is not an easy business and if you can keep working you're lucky. Especially when you're not a very good actor to begin with. I won't name names.
It's a movie with a heart of ice no matter how beautiful the exterior shots were (Monterey, California, not Maine) and how desperately the actors tried to emote. Once you pee into the well, the water's no good anymore. So you start with this big negative premise, and it's almost impossible to extricate yourself from it.
That Sylvia and Ken weren't suitable class-wise for each other was far and away enough. To add the frigid bitch thing on top of it (unhappy marriage would have been enough), and the physical exam from a doctor to prove Molly's virginity and you're in repair mode through the whole story.
Unless that's exactly what you want. However, expect someone to come along and point out how black the center of this story is.
I haven't read the book and that spans five years not a summer and some months following it up. Maybe the book was masterfully done. But I'm talking about the storytelling of the movie. If you're going to plant a bomb for yourself, you are then forced to deal with the bomb. Everything else takes a backseat. If you do not deal with the bomb then you look like 1) an incompetent or worse 2) an idiot who doesn't see anything wrong with this behavior.
See, I opt for #2 because of the general state of Hollywood morality. They are just so clueless.
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