Last Summer (1969)

Larry Karaszewski (0:05)

Hello, everyone. Thanks for putting on this commentary track. This is a day that I actually never thought would happen.

I was recording a commentary for Frank and Eleanor Perry's movie Last Summer, which has been a movie that's kind of been impossible to see for decades in the version that was intended to be seen in. I'm Larry Karaszewski, I'm a screenwriter. I wrote movies like Ed Wood and People vs. Larry Flan and Man on the Moon and the TV show People vs. OJ. Simpson, all with my writing partner Scott Alexander. But I think at this point, I am probably known as the world's biggest fan of Last Summer. I've been pushing this movie on people for a very long time, and screening it in alternate cuts and all kinds of things.

I am the ultimate fan of Last Summer, but I am definitely not the ultimate expert in Last Summer. And that is the person I've asked to join me today on this commentary track. It's Justin Bozung. Hello, Justin.

Justin Bozung (1:20)

Hey, Larry, how's it going? Thanks for inviting me.

Larry Karaszewski (1:22)

Oh yeah. So this has been a long, long haul. I love this movie so much. I first saw it when I was very young.

I grew up in South Bend, Indiana, and my mom was a waitress, my dad worked in a factory. But some reason around age nine, I think my parents got divorced, I became obsessed with movies. And this kind of aligns right with last summer being released, and that sort of Oscars with Midnight Cowboy and things like this. I became very fascinated with adult films and movies. I never liked kids movies when I was a kid. So, and for some reason, I felt like last summer was a movie that never left my hometown theater. It played its initial release, and back in those days, the initial release would go on for several years. It wasn't like the same way it would be opening weekend, and then two weeks later be on TV. It would come in, there would be a second feature at a drive, and then it would just pop up somewhere.

And what happened also was Richard Thomas, who is in this scene right here. That's Bruce Davidson, that's Richard Thomas.

He became a huge star in a TV show called The Waltons. And then the movie got really released. And so it seemed to stick around forever with a completely different campaign that was a lie. It would say, first there was Love Story, then there was Summer of 42, now it's Last Summer, starring Richard The Waltons, John Boy Thomas. And of course, this movie came out before Love Story and Summer of 42 So even as a 10-year-old, I knew that that was advertising.

But that's probably why I probably didn't see this initial release, but I saw it in the reissue release and became very... I loved the movie, and when it showed up on TV, I'd watch it then. And for some reason, in the 80s, it kind of stopped being shown anywhere, and I was always perplexed. And later on, after I had some success, the American Cinematheque came to me and asked me if I would host screenings and what would I like to see. And I think my first response was, let's show last summer. And they tried, and there was not a print. And that was me becoming aware that it wasn't officially available somewhere. I just thought it was... I mean, because it popped up on video, key video, but never showed up on DVD, and it never showed up on Blu-ray until the thing that you're holding in your hand right now, ladies. Um, so, and I was persistent about it, because I went on and did lots and lots and lots of screenings for the Cinematheque. And, um, you know, finally, they found a 16-millimeter print. Gosh, is it in Australia or New Zealand? It's one of those places. And we got that, and we got Barbara Hershey to show up, and it wound up that the print was pretty beat up, and it wasn't really the, it was an edited version as well. It was kind of the first bunch of reels, were the kind of the TV version, and then the last reel, which is the sequence that is probably best known for.

That is complete. So it was a successful screening. Barbara was lovely, and a few years later, Quentin Tarantino's theater, the New Beverly had a Frank Perry retrospective, and they brought the same print, and I talked to Bruce Davison there. But I've always been waving my hand and saying, where is this thing? I contacted the families of the Perrys and things like this. At one point, I became vice president of history and preservation at the Academy, and I tried to push it forward. I think we tried at one point contacting Katy Perry, who's niece of Frank Perry, thinking that, I forgot Katy Perry involved, maybe it would happen.