A Summer Place (1959)

Richard Egan: Ken Jorgenson

Photos 

Quotes 

• Helen Jorgenson : [after she has seen Molly Jorgenson and Johnny Hunter kissing]  Well, your daughter didn't waste any time. She's let that boy kiss and maul her her very first night here.

  Ken Jorgenson : Where were they?

  Helen Jorgenson : Down below me, in the garden.

  Ken Jorgenson : If they had anything to hide, you think they'd do it right under your window?

  Helen Jorgenson : Are you defending her cheap behavior?

  Ken Jorgenson : Cheap? A girl kissing a boy in the moonlight? You know Molly's as decent as this boy seems to be.

  Helen Jorgenson : [really angry now]  No decent girl lets a boy kiss and maul her the very first night they meet! I suppose it's your Swedish blood in her. I've read about how the Swedes bathe together and... and have trial marriages and free love. I've read all about that. Anything goes.

  Ken Jorgenson : [angry and disgusted]  So, now you hate the Swedes. How many outlets for your hate do you have, Helen? We haven't been able to find a new house because of your multiplicity of them. We can't buy near a school because you hate kids. They make noise. And there can't be any Jews or Catholics on the block, either. And, oh, yes, it can't be anywhere near the Polish or Italian sections. And, of course, Negroes have to be avoided at all costs. Now, let's see: No Jews, no Catholics, no Italians, no Poles, no children. No Negroes. Do I have the list right, so far? And now, you've added Swedes. And, oh, yes, you won't use a Chinese laundry because you distrust Orientals. And you think the British are snobbish, the Russians fearful, the French immoral, the Germans brutal, and all Latin Americans lazy. What's your plan? To cut humanity out? Are you anti-people and anti-life? Must you suffocate every natural instinct in our daughter, too? Must you label young love-making as cheap and wanton and indecent? Must you persist in making sex, itself, a filthy word?

  [Helen, without a word, leaves the room. Ken slams the door after her] 

• Ken Jorgenson : [after hearing that Johnny threatened to kill his wife]  I wouldn't blame him if he did.

  Helen Jorgenson : [sneering]  Of course you wouldn't. It would make it easier for you to sneak off and sleep with his harlot of a mother!

• Sylvia Hunter : I'm perfectly willing to come to you whenever you want.

  Ken Jorgenson : All summer?

  Sylvia Hunter : All summer.

  Ken Jorgenson : What about the winter? All the winters... all our lives?

• Ken Jorgenson : What's it like being stuck out here all winter?

  Sylvia Hunter : Oh... it's quite lovely after the first snow.

  Ken Jorgenson : And after the blizzard starts?

  [uncomfortable pause] 

  Ken Jorgenson : You've avoided me ever since I arrived, Sylvia. Why? Can't we talk a moment?

  Sylvia Hunter : What about?

  Ken Jorgenson : You... me... Bart. How are things between you?

  Sylvia Hunter : We, ah, made a life. I guess we all adjust ourselves, don't we?

  Ken Jorgenson : I have never been able to. All through these years when I dreamed to have you wrapped up in them. I tried forgetting them. I even tried to imagine that you had gone fat and ugly and saggy.

  Sylvia Hunter : [laughs]  Is that why you came back? To find out? To see?

  Ken Jorgenson : I came back because I had to.

• Molly Jorgenson : [Looking at the island through her binoculars on a boat with her father]  There's a boy up there watching me!

  [He runs off] 

  Molly Jorgenson : There he goes. Funny feeling being looked at without knowing it. Remember that family that lived next door to us back home?

  Ken Jorgenson : Yeah.

  Molly Jorgenson : Their son used to look at me.

  Ken Jorgenson : Without you knowing it?

  Molly Jorgenson : Well, his bedroom was right across from mine and... one night I felt naughty and went right on undressing so he could see. Then all of a sudden I... I got terribly ashamed and I ran and pulled the curtains down. I'll never forget... I had hot and cold flashes all over me afterwards. Wasn't that awful?

  Ken Jorgenson : Well, I guess every human being on earth has a few things he's ashamed of.

• Helen Jorgenson : I don't want her stared at.

  Ken Jorgenson : So you insist on de-sexing her. As though sex was synonymous with dirt.

• Ken Jorgenson : I think we're passed the point of pretending what we're not.

• Sylvia Hunter : We've spoiled two lives. And now we're paying for it.

  Ken Jorgenson : For the rest of our lives?

• Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble : [Tapping Ken on the shoulder with her cane]  Young man, weren't you the lifeguard here a while back?

  Ken Jorgenson : I was, Mrs. Hamble. *Quite* a while back.

  Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble : Jorgenson, aren't you?

  Ken Jorgenson : Yes.

  Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble : Living in the gardener's cottage in the rear?

  Ken Jorgenson : Well, not any more, ma'am. We're here as guests this time.

  Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble : We? Did you marry that pretty thing you were *always* teaching to swim? You didn't fool anyone, you and she - not me, anyway.

  Ken Jorgenson : No, I didn't marry her, ma'am. I met Mrs. Jorgenson in Buffalo.

  Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble : Buffalo... that's out West, isn't it?

  Ken Jorgenson : New York, ma'am.

  Mrs. Emily Hamilton Hamble : Oh, yes. Niagara Falls place. Are you a lifeguard there, now?

  Ken Jorgenson : [grinning]  No, ma'am. I'm a research chemist.