Directed by Paul Bogart, it is structured as a sequel to the 1971 film Summer of '42 which recounted the events in the earlier portion of Raucher's memoirs.

The film is a slice-of-life style autobiography of sorts, depicting Herman Raucher's (Gary Grimes) first year in college, where he falls in love with Julie (Deborah Winters) under the shadow of the growing threat of World War II.

Friends Hermie (an aspiring artist), Oscy (a jock), and Benjy (a nerd) graduate from high school in the spring of 1944, under the looming threat of World War II.

Shortly after moving into the frat house, however, Oscy is expelled for bringing a prostitute into his room and Hermie is forced to deal with an inconsiderate roommate.

Hermie returns to college and is about to call for a cab at the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad train station when Julie arrives in her car.

Within a few years, the sight of an electric streetcar on a city byway had stunningly almost completely disappeared in the United States except for two or three remaining neighborhood lines in Philadelphia's SEPTA system, the ancient late-19th century cable cars on the steep hills of San Francisco (using a different powering system not electric) becoming a moving national historic landmarks.

A few other cities had a couple cars sitting in a few transit streetcar / bus museums like in Baltimore, and even fewer actually were clanking / whizzing and operating on street rail routes.

The trams / streetcars that ran in wartime Brooklyn during that time period of 1942–1945 of the World War II era in which the movie is set.

These in the 'Class of :44' feature film are actually slightly varied post-war PCC models (characterized by the specific presence of standee type windows, which pre-war PCCs streetcars such as the ones that operated in New York's Borough of Brooklyn then did not have yet).