Can someone explain the ending?
I saw this movie on cable last year. Did they kill Rhoda? It's hard to tell.
shareExactly what happened is left up to the viewer's interpretation, unless the novel states otherwise.
I'm led to believe they didn't. Barbra Hershey and Bruce Davison walked along the beach not exhibiting any behavior one would think of a couple of teenagers who just committed murder. Richard Thomas showed the most emotion, and I saw it as shock of one's own action against a person he once befriended and defended and had now assaulted, conforming to the kind of person lacking of character that Rhoda once criticized Davison of having. Rhoda didn't emerge out of the brush not because she was killed but because why would she accompany the three degenerates who raped her back to town?
Yeah I don't think They killed her. They got up off her and she was crying.
shareHmmmm- they definitely didn't murder her - the rape was bad enough though.
The book mentions they bump into her again briefly later that summer but don't speak again.
In the sequel, Come Winter, Evan Hunter explores the idea that she was a willing victim, and knew what was going to happen in the forest.
Hershey was so beautiful in that movie - had a major crush on her after I saw it on tv - saw it again 10 years later - quite an affecting little movie.
There was a sequel? I didn't know that. I just happened to pick the novel up at a free book giveaway and I found it fascinating. I haven't been able to find a copy of the film though. But, I might have to check out this sequel you speak of.
shareOccasionally, if you Google Last Summer (1969) VHS you will find some used tapes on sale on the internet. That is the only way to get a tape.
shareIf you don't mind my correcting you, in Come Winter, Evan Hunter was not exploring the possibility that Rhoda was a willing rape victim. Rather, in Peter's therapy sessions (he is in therapy trying to rid himself of a recurring nightmare that is directly linked to Rhoda's rape--although he refuses to acknowledge the connection), he tells his therapist that SANDY is of the belief that Rhoda was willing and that the whole episode was not a rape. (His therapist knows better, of course, but Peter is in major-league denial.)
shareThe book is not nearly so beautiful. Sandy's character is blunt, callous and controlling. She manipulates the boys into doing her bidding. Everything happens on Sandy's terms. She decides when she has had enough of the seagull and she bashes it to death on the beach. When she has had enough of Rhoda, she tells the boys to "Do it to her". So essentially, Rhoda is raped by Sandy. In the book, Sandy is a pretty blonde and Rhoda is a slightly overweight brunette. Evan Hunter makes a politcal issue out of this and creates Rhoda's (brunette) character as less powerful than Sandy's (blonde) character. He continues on in the same theme in the sequel to this, in "come winter", where Sandy and her cohorts actually murder another female victim (this time, a redhead). So pretty little blonde Sandy has managed to get away with rape and murder. Nice one, Hunter ... Move over, Hitler!
shareYou must be an Evan Hunter fan - to read the sequel as well! Comparing Hunter to the instigator of the Holocaust seems slightly un-informed to me - but I'm sure you have a great theory on it:)
I read Come Winter, and the redhead whom Sandy killed was an anti-Semite who deliberately broke the leg of a Jewish man that Sandy was teaching to ski. It was one of the most powerful books that I've ever read, because almost everyone is evil (with the exception of the Jewish man), with some characters more evil than others, and the result is that the reader is almost forced to admire the characters who are the lesser of 2 evils (even though these characters, especially Sandy, are STILL extremely evil.) An absolutely brilliant book, and I really fail to see the comparison between Evan Hunter and Adolph Hitler.
shareThe novel most definitely states otherwise, They absolutely did NOT kill Rhoda. It was a gang rape (which, unfortunately, is not made clear by the movie). I would strongly recommend that anyone who saw the movie should also read the book.
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I'm writing a reply to "mausermike63" so long after he wrote his question that I'm sure he won't see it, but for years and years, seeing this film on television, I never quite "got" the ending, either: I knew that the Peter, Dan and Sandy did something sadistic to Rhoda, probably rape her.
Last night, I saw a SLIGHTLY less abrupt ending when TCM screened the movie, but it was only TODAY, poking around on the internet looking for an answer as to why such a carefully paced film has such an abrupt and choppy ending, I found my answer.
All I had ever seen was a heavily edited version of the climactic scene in the "forest." TCM's version, though more complete, still cuts pieces away to avoid some (justified) nudity--hardly anything by TODAY'S standards, certainly!--but enough to be an issue for idiots.
Looking over discussions of the film, I gather that it is even possible that NOBODY has ever seen the last scenes of the film as the filmmaker originally intended.
However, the basic storyline is that Sandy, who has been becoming more and more infuriated with the way Rhoda's mature outlook makes her seem less and less of a woman, instigates the boys to tear off Rhoda's clothing and rape her, forcibly. After the violation, the three teenagers are abashed by their cruel attack, and leave, without a word, leaving their victim silent and alone in the forest, just as, earlier, Sandy had destroyed the seagull they were trying to aid.
Only Peter has enough sensitivity to pause, between the site of the attack and his retreating companions, as if to consider whether he should go back. The expression on his face lets us know that he may recognize how badly he has sinned, and how his failure to defend a girl he thought he loved has marked him, forever, with a stain upon his character which he can never remove.
It's an ambiguous moment, and an ambiguous ending, and I believe it's meant to provoke questions in us, and make us think about our own sins of cruelty, and times when we, too, were caught up in a group instead of making our own moral decisions.
A point that hasn't been brought up:
In the novel not only does Dan rape Rhoda but the Peter character does as well. In the movie, only Dan commits the deed as Peter helps restrain her. Interesting that the producers of the film felt the need to change that.
I wrote about this on another post, but will repeat it here: back in 1973 when I was 17 I went to a special screening of LAST SUMMER at the New School for Social Research in NYC where screenwriter Eleanore Perry would be appearing. Having read the novel, but was too young in 1969 to see it in the theater as it was rated X (which back in the day meant "Adults Only" and not "porno") I eagerly attended. What was shown was the X-rated version, and the rape scene was longer and much more intense than the version I caught decades later. But what really shocked me was that only Dan raped Rhoda. When Ms. Perry came out after the film and was answering questions, I raised my hand and asked why she had changed this, why did she let one guy off the hook? She answered, "I think it would have been too much," to which I shot back in all my youthful naiveté , "How could you be so untrue to the characters?" The older crowd there had a heavy helping of celebrity-itess gasped at my "rudeness", but I had read the book and really wanted to know. Ms. Perry, alas, didn't answer.