Picnic (1955)

Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

One of the film's great tricks is that, for a time, you think it will go down a rabbit hole of unrealistic glorification.

This is my favorite movie of this time period and I watch it every time it comes on. I'm a boomer and this movie brings not only the heat and repressed and not so repressed sexuality many reviewers comment on but more importantly, it juxtaposes it with the innocence and naivete that were a part of America, especially small town America through the end of the 70's. Everything from the opening shots of this Midwestern small town, to the house, and especially the Labor day picnic take you back into this time of innocence. The opening sequences are so powerful in evoking that time period that I can smell the marigolds in the garden and feel the warmth of the sun beating down on William Holden's bare chest as he sees Madge for the first time. Even The look on Helen, the elderly neighbors, face when she sees also sees him reminds me that the sense of romance in life, the knight on the white horse that all girls grew up with, is lost in this technological age. Every woman in this movie hungers for romance, with the underlying sexual tension not nearly as important. The sense of wonder and discovery we had then with our first romantic kiss becomes palpable as Madge and he dance. Their bodies barely touching, but like the characters, you can imagine what it will feel like when they finally do touch. I think this is the thing Inge brings to all his works, never more evident than in this movie and in Splendor in the Grass, this sense of innocence and naivete, romance and our yearning for it, head to head with the realities of what happens to the innocence if romance leads unbridled. But Inge always leaves us unafraid of the romance, even if it leads to the worst, you would never trade one moment of that feeling, even if you knew what was ahead. Watch this movie, it does not disappoint.

I just watched this with Mom who hadn't seen this before so we were both watching this with fresh eyes. William Holden plays a drifter who wanders into a small town hoping to reacquaint with college buddy Cliff Robertson who's the son of a grain company boss. Robertson has Kim Novak for a girlfriend, one who's tired of being valued for her looks as she's a shoo-in for winning the title occasion's beauty contest. Other female characters start having urges around Holden like the schoolteacher played by Rosalind Russell and the teen sister of Novak played by Susan Strasberg. Joshua Logan, who also directed the play version of this, helms this film version with quite a theatrical and cinematic flourish with a music score to match that makes it quite admirable if a bit over-the-top in some scenes. Still, the performances are very good with Ms. Russell and Ms. Strasberg particularly memorable. Also, Arthur O'Connell also was good as Ms. Russell's beau. In summary, both me and Mom highly enjoyed Picnic.

more than a film, a kind of experience. dramatic, not original but good tool for remember the force of great stories about self definition, love and fundamental choices, with few traces from Tennessee Williams and Steinbeck. William Holden does a great role. Kim Novak has the science to use her classic tricks for create the unpredictable blonde. Rosalind Russell is pure Blanche du Bois and Verna Felton is herself at all. a film who remains, for me, a kind of revelation. because it is , against mistakes, a convincing fresco of South. because it gives more than a drama but a drama well made. because it has the rare gift to be sentimental and realistic in same measure, with same brilliance.

Picnic: Never saw it when it came out. Saw Kim Novak on special TCM interview show this week, she of 80 years and still looking wonderful. I DVR'd Picnic, and of course marveled at how young she was at the time this movie was made. No white hair for Kim. Her hair is still a beautiful blonde, and her 2012 clothing in the interview was very stylish.Holden looking wonderful. So what if he was so much older. Alan was his age, and nobody asked how many years after his college graduation. Holden a bum, a loser, with juvenile delinquent record must have been somewhat attractive qualities for Novak, since all she had to compare was goofy rich guy Alan or stupid paperboy Nick Adams.Susan Strasberg couldn't fool her mother with that smoking. Betty Field made a nice mother, and I remember her as Cassandra Tower from Kings Row. Mrs. Potts was very nice, and accepted Holden as he was, not comparing him to some local hometown Romeo.Kings Row was a small town where bad things happened. So was Peyton Place. So was Harmony on TV's Passions. Remember River City, Iowa, in the Music Man? River City's 'crimes' included things such as 'reading a dime novel in the corn crib.' Indeed, small town America has lots of shouldn'ts and secrets, and absolutely everyone knows everyone else's business. We have a particular small town in our state where people left their doors unlocked only ten years ago, but now their minimal crime leads to locked doors.Picnic was where a hot hunk, invited, arrives courtesy of a freight car, into a town in the middle of nowhere and proceeds to take the most beautiful young woman away from the high-rolling scion of the town's wealthy leader. During the actual picnic itself, food and desserts are only the precursors of the steamy evening to come.The Rosalind Russell part was way overdone. She was so desperate. Arthur O'Connell was probably married to his mother, and Roz must have ended up being a very shrewish daughter-in-law, if the mother was still alive. Roz begging Arthur to marry her was so corny, uncomfortable, stupid and dumb. She should have stayed on at the school, where at least the children may have returned her affections. Sticking out her tongue as she departed the school was the most terrible thing I saw her do. It's bye-bye lowly school paycheck, and hello O'Connell's self-employed monthly stipend with probably poverty for Roz and scrubbing those floors on her hands and knees to keep in favor with him -- since apparently he had no passion for her.