Picnic (Widescreen)

Joshua Logan directed William Inge's play on Broadway and carried it to Hollywood, earning Oscar nominations for Best Picture and Best Director in his screen-directing debut. Holden is years too old for the role but oozes sex appeal and makes a swoony stud when he takes his shirt off (or when, better yet, it's ripped from his back by a boozing Russell), and Novak is a lovely lost girl yearning for something she can't quite grasp. Arthur O'Connell earned an Oscar nomination as Russell's tippling boyfriend. The film was a huge popular and critical hit, but Logan's stiff and strident direction hasn't dated well. He makes his points in big capital letters--subtlety was never his strong point--and loses the natural beauty of the Kansas locations when he takes the climactic picnic scenes into an obviously artificial soundstage. Picnic remains a loved American classic, largely for Holden's tough-guy vulnerability and James Wong Howe's brilliant widescreen color photography. --Sean Axmaker

A scene that immediately comes to mind is one where Rosalind Russell, as a desperately lonely middle-aged woman living in denial, is unblinkingly staring at a blazing red sunset with her gentleman friend, Howard. In a tight, intense tone of voice she suggests that the day doesn't want to end, that it's going to "put up a big scrap, try to set the world on fire," to keep the night from creeping in. Yow! Besides being an example of great acting, it's a scene that just can't be fully appreciated until you've reached a certain age, seen some time slip by, and pondered mortality. Russell makes the most of it, and it always brings a lump to my throat. Howard, in his clueless way, agrees that "a sunset is a beautiful thing, all right." I suspect that people who watch this film, shrug, and say "so what? Kim Novak is fat and dull, and Holden is too old" are a lot like the character Howard, which may be to their advantage after all.

Regarding Kim Novak, I could certainly picture a more nuanced performance in that role, but she is better than OK, and not fat by 1950's standards! As for William Holden being too old to play Hal, I can forgive much for the sake of charisma like his. He certainly seems older than Cliff Robertson, who plays his former college fraternity brother (Holden was 37 at the time). The age issue is addressed in another scene with Rosalind Russell (now I think of it, hers may be the best performance in the film), where her insecurity and anger are suddenly let loose in a drunken rage as she lashes out at Hal. She shouts: "you're no jive kid, just afraid to act your age," and her tirade gets meaner with each second. This is the turning point of the whole story, and contains some more great acting. She spits the words out like venom at Hal, whose agony on hearing things he is afraid to think about, let along say out loud, is clearly visible on Holden's face. "Picnic" is full of vivid scenes like this, as well as more subtle and lighthearted character studies, and it is not a soap opera by any means.

Incidentally, this film contains a technical milestone at the very end. The last shot is reputedly the very first helicopter shot in a motion picture, done using a borrowed US Navy chopper. In this landmark shot, the maximum effect is achieved with no words. We have already seen Hal catch a passing freight train out of town, and we've seen Madge (Kim Novak) break the bond with her mother and catch a bus out of town. We know that their paths are to cross again as the helicopter shot begins by tracking the bus with Madge on it, and she is represented by a busy, hopeful-sounding version of the "Picnic" melody heard earlier in the film. As the camera continues to rise, we catch sight of Hal's freight train nearer the horizon, heading in the same direction, at which time a rough and virile melody begins to sound right alongside Madge's "Picnic" theme. What a great way to end a great film.


Baroque-Level Melodrama Portrays Lust in the Heartland With a Stellar Cast   April 26, 2006
Ed Uyeshima (San Francisco, CA USA)
12 out of 13 found this review helpful

Even though I agree this 1955 movie has moments of silly excess (just look at the DVD cover), I'm still surprised how there seems to be a backlash by contemporary critics against the film for being dated melodrama. That's exactly the reason why I find this film so entertaining, for the Baroque-level elements provide a dramatic resonance to the most mundane of settings, the Labor Day picnic in a small Kansas town during the Eisenhower era. Into this insulated cornbelt hamlet comes Hal Carter, a swaggering drifter looking to connect with his old college buddy Alan for a job. His natural, testosterone-fueled charisma attracts all the women, including Alan's girlfriend Madge Owens. Contrary to her repressed mother's nagging wishes to marry into Alan's wealthy family, Madge becomes drawn to Hal much to the disapproval of most of the town. Spinster schoolteacher Rosemary Sidney rents a room in the Owens house, but she is desperately aching for her reluctant suitor Howard Bevans to marry her. Madge's little sister Millie tires of living in her beautiful sister's shadow and solicits Hal's attention, and kindly neighbor Mrs. Potts is the only one who sees Hal as the positive life force he wants to be.

The movie begs for Douglas Sirk or Elia Kazan to commandeer it with individualistic style, but direction is left in the hands of Joshua Logan, who directed the stage version on Broadway. Logan has a tendency toward focusing on the obvious in his films ("Sayonara", "South Pacific"), but he certainly captures the latent passions that drive screenwriter Daniel Taradash's florid adaptation of William Inge's play. The rural look of the film feels right, and James Wong Howe's stellar cinematography has a lot to do with that. Another contributing factor to the film's success is George Duning's familiar, Bernstein-like music score with its soaring string arrangements. The acting is uniformly strong even if the casting is less than ideal in some cases. In a role that should have ideally gone to Brando at his prime, William Holden is at least a decade too old as Hal (the actor admitted as much afterward) and a bit too haggard-looking to be the subject of such swooning. However, he conveys the empty bravado of his character with conviction.

Even though she overacts during her drunken scene, Rosalind Russell is unafraid to show the deep-seeded loneliness and innate vulgarity in Rosemary. It's a masterful performance that repels at the same time. In her first leading role, a well-cast Kim Novak manages to show Madge's insecurity in a most affecting manner especially toward the end. Her mating dance with Holden to the strains of "Moonglow" under the Chinese lanterns is still one of the most sensual scenes in movies. In fact, their chemistry is key in overcoming the contrived hurdle of believing their characters would fall for each other over the course of one day. Effective in smaller roles are Arthur O'Connell as Howard (his heartbreaking scenes with Russell provide a sharp counterpoint to the blooming romance of the young lovers), Betty Field as Madge's mother Flo, a sympathetic Verna Felton as Mrs. Potts, a young Cliff Robertson as Alan, and an even younger Susan Strasberg as Millie. I have to admit the last ten minutes of the film always get to me for its overt romanticism. The 2000 DVD contains a decent print of the film and a gallery of stills from the film set to the music score.


Casting and mis-casting in Kansas   August 19, 2000
Edward (San Francisco)
11 out of 15 found this review helpful

It's a lot of fun watching "Picnic", for nostalgia's sake if nothing else. People from a certain generation can remember where they first saw the movie, who they saw it with, and they remember the "Moonglow/Picnic" theme emanating from every existing radio and juke box. The film was based on a Broadway play that had a titillating reputation because of its plot of a physical hobo's seduction of a rural beauty queen in flat, 1950's Kansas. Alas, "Picnic" has not aged well -- like so many of the dramas of William Inge, a highly respected playwright of the Fifties whose fame is rapidly receding into oblivion. (Inge committed suicide in 1973.) As Americana it's still effective (and the highlight of the movie is James Wong Howe's photography), but as drama it has lost a lot of its original punch. Today people seem to be split regarding not only the script but the casting, particularly William Holden in the role of Hal. I think it's one of Holden's best roles, a part that might have been tailor-made for him. It's been stated that he looks much older than Cliff Robertson (in his film debut) who plays his rich pal Alan from college. (Holden was, in fact, seven years older than Robertson.) But Alan is suppose to have spent his years since college sitting behind a desk and playing golf, whereas Hal has been riding boxcars. Hey, you'd look older, too! (The role of Hal was originated on Broadway by tough guy Ralph Meeker, who was a couple of years younger than Holden. Alan was played by Paul Newman, no less.) The male casting in "Picnic", including Arthur O"Connell recreating his stage role, is fine. It's the distaff side that's puzzling, despite the fact that Betty Field is quite good as the heroine's weary, wary mother. The problems start with Kim Novak and Susan Strasberg as Madge and Millie Owens, respectively. To begin with, I don't believe for two minutes that they are sisters. And they are definitely not from Kansas. Kim Novak looks like what she was: a starlet on location. Susan Strasberg is too pretty to play an ugly duckling, and her acting betrays the affectations of the Actors Studio influence. Then there's Rosalind Russell. Possibly the director Joshua Logan was in awe of her many successes (she had just starred in the hit Broadway musical "Wonderful Town"), but she had to be very carefully controlled or she'd take off like a St Bernard on a leash, dragging the hapless director behind her. That's what happens here. As long as she was playing a zany like Mame Dennis she could strut and mug to her heart's content, but Rosemary is a sensitive person who (like Hal) hides her fear of aging and loneliness behind bravado. Miss Russell lays on the slapstick and turns the characterization into a caricature. (The New York Rosemary was probably more interesting, played by the quirky character actress Eileen Heckart.) The episode where Rosemary literally begs her long-time beau to marry her should be touching, but because the character has been vulgarized the scene barely squeaks by. Actually, the same could be said for the whole ending. Mrs Owens warns her daughter about the future -- the drinking, the other women -- but Millie urges her sister to follow her heart. And so we find Madge, wearing a brave smile, boarding a bus to take off after Hal, who has hopped yet another freight train. (Inge's original bittersweet ending was much more ambivalent.) 1950's Hollywood, of course, could have found a cozy ending for "Medea", so the picture concludes with Hal and Madge heading for the same destination and, it is implied, a rosy future. But one can't help thinking that, even if they do get married, it's all going to be just like Mama said. Life for Hal and Madge is going to be ... no picnic.