Jodie Foster & Richard Harris in "Echoes of a Summer" (1976)

A perceptive 11-year-old girl, Deirdre Striden (Jodie Foster), suffers from an incurable, terminal heart condition. For two years, her parents Eugene Striden (Richard Harris) and Ruth Striden (Lois Nettleton) have consulted heart specialists, but without any success. Her mother wants to continue to take her to new doctors, although she knows that treatment is futile. Her father thinks she should be living in denial of her condition. So, her anguished father, a professional writer, buys a lake house in Mahone Bay, Nova Scotia, so his daughter’s last summer on earth is peaceful.

To ensure that her last days are as pleasant as possible. The nine-year-old neighbor boy, Phillip (Brad Savage), is the only one who brings a little happiness into the home, since Deirdre knows exactly what is wrong with her. It is only through her friendship with Philip that Deirdre is able to honestly face the reality of death, and Deirdre tries to give her grief-stricken parents the courage they need to face the dreadful loss that her death will bring to them.

After Deirdre suffers from an acute attack and the end comes faster than everybody had thought, Ruth and Phillip succeed anyway in celebrating the twelfth birthday of the girl as a day of joy.

A 1976 Canadian-American family drama film directed by Don Taylor, produced by Sandy Howard, based on the play "Isle of Children" (1962) by Robert L. Joseph, who also adapted the screenplay, cinematography by John Coquillon, starring Jodie Foster, Richard Harris, Lois Nettleton, Brad Savage, William Windom, and Geraldine Fitzgerald.

Based on "Isle of Children", a flop Broadway play that ran two weeks in 1962. Jodie Foster's role was originally played on-stage by Patty Duke.

Richard Harris thought the script was faulty, and threatened director Don Taylor with a good thrashing. He also locked William Windom in his dressing room for several hours.

During the end credits of the film, the flag flapping in the wind atop Dierdre's wooden castle, is the flag for the province of Nova Scotia, where the film takes place. As of 2016, the Mahone Bay house, in which this movie was filmed, is still standing, and looks more or less the same as it did in the 1970s. However, Dierdre's wooden castle is no longer there. The house is now sold as cottage property, and gets rented out to visitors throughout the summer.

Although mostly dismissed by the critics and audiences at the time of its release, the film was notable for an acclaimed performance by Foster, who also had her breakthrough that year with four prominent releases, including "Taxi Driver" (1976). Jodie Foster was staying in Canada in 1976 to star in two Canadian-set films. The other being "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane" (1976).

Adapted by Robert L. Joseph from his play The Isle of Children, this talkfest is filled with fanciful wordplay, whimsical contrivances, and preteens who speak with absurd eloquence. Joseph contrives a universe in which people articulate their feelings “poetically,” so the characters here are as likely to express themselves through esoteric historical references as they are through meticulously crafted metaphors. And while Joseph occasionally hits the bull’s-eye with a line that conveys some simple emotional truth, getting there requires slogging through lots of florid nonsense. As a result, watching this quickly grows tiresome, unless one surrenders to the very different pleasures offered by the work of the two stars, Jodie Foster and Richard Harris.

Foster was already a veteran child actor by the time she made this, and delivers confident and sensitive work that embellishes her status as one of the most impressive youth performers ever to work in Hollywood. Even though her character is preternaturally sophisticated, Foster makes the role feel as organic as possible by tapping into her own natural intelligence, and if her acting never tugs at the heartstrings, that’s a compliment to the good taste she exhibits, since Foster never takes cheap emotional shots for schmaltzy effect. Harris, meanwhile, provides the opposite of realism, opting instead for grandiose romanticism. Brooding around the film’s lovely Nova Scotia locations while reciting poetry, singing, and spinning imaginative stories for the amusement of Foster’s character, Harris incarnates a Superdad who devotes his life to filling each of his little girl’s final moments with laughter and wonderment. Whether this characterization comes across as endearing or overbearing is entirely a matter of taste, but none would dispute the assertion that Harris attacks his role with gusto.

Originally titled "The Last Castle", the title of the theme song, written and sung by Richard Harris. Despite its sincere intentions, this is a lovely, somewhat monotonous, treatise on the realities of death. This simple, sentimental story is a must see for all Jodi Foster fans, luminous at eleven years and holding this picture together with a flawless performance.