“In everyone’s life there’s a summer of ’42.”

Summer of '42 is a 1971 American coming-of-age comedy-drama film based on the memoirs of screenwriter Herman Raucher. It tells the story of how Raucher, in his early teens on his 1942 summer vacation on Nantucket Island (off the coast of Cape Cod), embarks on a one-sided romance with a young woman, Dorothy, whose husband has gone off to fight in World War II.

The film was directed by Robert Mulligan, and starred Gary Grimes as Hermie, Jerry Houser as his best friend Oscy, Oliver Conant as their nerdy young friend Benjie, Jennifer O'Neill as the mysterious woman with whom Hermie becomes involved.

Nantucket Island was too far modernized in 1970 to be convincingly transformed to resemble an early 1940s resort, so production was taken to Mendocino, California, on the West Coast of the US.Shooting took place over eight weeks, during which O'Neill was sequestered from the three boys cast as "The Terrible Trio," in order to ensure that they did not become close and ruin the sense of awkwardness and distance that their characters felt towards Dorothy.

The movie earned an Academy Award – Original Dramatic Score – for Michel Legrand.