Summer of the Seventeenth Doll (film)

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll
Directed by	Leslie Norman
Produced by	Leslie Norman
Written by	John Dighton
Based on	the play by Ray Lawler
Starring	Ernest Borgnine Anne Baxter Angela Lansbury John Mills
Music by	Benjamin Frankel
Cinematography	Paul Beeson
Edited by	Gordon Hales
Production company	Hecht Hill Lancaster (Australia)
Distributed by	United Artists
Release date	2 December 1959 (Australia) 16 December 1961 (USA)
Running time	94 min.
Country	Australia United Kingdom United States
Language	English

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a 1959 Australian-British film directed by Leslie Norman and is based on the Ray Lawler play Summer of the Seventeenth Doll. In the USA the film was released under the title Season of Passion.

Queensland sugarcane cutters Roo and Barney spend the off season in Sydney each year, seeing their girlfriends. For sixteen years Roo has spent the summer with barmaid Olive, bringing her a kewpie doll, while Barney romances Nancy. In the seventeenth year, Barney arrives to find that Nancy has married; however Olive has arranged a replacement, manicurist Pearl. Roo has had a bad season, losing his place as head of the cane cutting team to a younger man, Dowd.

Barney tries to smooth things over between Roo and Dowd, who falls for Bubba, a girl who has grown up with the cane cutters. Barney leaves to work with Dowd. We learn that Dowd has proposed to Bubba, and she now intends to go with him to Queensland. Roo proposes to Olive, who is devastated by this, refusing his proposal and demanding that Roo return their lives to the way they were. Roo leaves, and we see him next saying farewell to Barney and the other cane cutters, along with Bubba, as they board the train for Queensland. Roo then returns to the bar where Olive is working, and the pair are shown laughing together as Roo drinks his beer.

Summer of the Seventeenth Doll is a pioneering Australian play written by Ray Lawler and first performed at the Union Theatre in Melbourne, Australia on 28 November 1955. The play is almost unanimously considered by scholars of literature to be the most historically significant in Australian theatre history, openly and authentically portraying distinctly Australian life and characters. It was one of the first truly naturalistic "Australian" theatre productions.

The play premiered in London in 1957 and was a big hit. Film rights were purchased by Hecht Hill Lancaster (HHL) for a reported US $300,000 (or £134,000). The play had reportedly been recommended to Harold Hecht of HHL by Laurence Olivier, who directed the London production. HHL announced the film would be part of a 12-picture slate to be released through United Artists; other films included Take a Giant Step, The Unforgiven, Rabbit Trap and Cry Tough. Doll was to star Burt Lancaster and Rita Hayworth, who had just appeared in Separate Tables for HHL.