Picnic

Rating:
Summary: A subtle movie! A Dynamite Cast! A Gorgeous Score!
Review: This is a subtle and rewarding film. The cast is magnificent--the performances great! One of my favorite film scores too!

A hint for watching the movie. With each viewing, I find I have been concentrating on a different actor. Kim Novak is definitely at her peak; William Holden is remarkable; Rosalind Russell is at her very best, with a fantastically varied and difficult part; Susan Strasberg is wonderful indeed. All of the supporting actors are super too! And this IS primarily a story of individuals' lives, and how they are changed.

The film gives a remarkably accurate picture of life in 1950's rural Kansas. But onto this background is thrust a love story of great interest and appeal. The film has super color and fine sound (for its era anyway).

The film is, quite simply, astounding. Don't rent it....buy it, bucause it just gets better and better with repeated watchings!

Rating:
Summary: PICNIC--An American Classic.
Review: Do you know the expression, "they just don't make movies like this any more?" This is definitely the case with PICNIC. A little bit of Americana is captured in this 50s classic of a young girl's awakening to romantic love. A small town's warmth and charm is somehow stirred by a stranger's arrival (Bill Holden) and somehow life will never be the same. Colors are vibrant, the characters are real, you almost wish you were at the picnic enjoying the festivities. Make PICNIC a part of your classic's collection.

Rating:
Summary: Fine film IF you have not seen or read the play
Review: If one has never read, seen, or been involved in producing William Inge's original stage script, Picnic as a film is a lush, beautifully photographed, solidly acted and well scored motion picture. However if one is familiar with the play, the film's free adaption does change much of the immediacy and intimacy of the story.And maybe not necessarily for the better.

One of the central problems facing a producing team in bringing a stage play to life is deciding what to do about setting. Many plays occur in a single unit setting, thereby closing the characters in a very confined space, thusly raising the emotional stakes. That limited setting and the related lush dialouge often translates rather flatly on film.

Joshua Logan and his production crew chose to open the play up and use some very picturesque settings and stagings. The picnic of the title, really a red herring in the play, takes center stage here in the film and becomes a wonderful Paganesque fertility rite. This choice does make for some beautiful sights and sounds, but rather dilutes the dramatic intensity that drives Inge's central narrative. Again, if one is not familiar with the play, this will not make any difference.

Much has been already written about William Holden being perhaps too old for the part of Hal, a supposed twenty something drifter. His fine acting ability really makes it a mute point unless of course in the scenes where he is supposed to be dating the teenage Millie (Susan Strassberg)and then it really seems rather "icky". It could of course all add up to justifying the attraction to the fertility goddess that is Madge. Holden's boyish athleticism and boundless energy makes his Hal the perfect archetypal warrior.

Kim Novack was never better as the awakening Midwestern Venus that is Madge Owens. Her beauty is earthy and archetypaly classic. Visually, Logan has done wonders making Hal and Madge fated into connecting. They will be responsible for regenerating the country.

Of course the film is underwritten when compared to the play. Several post romantic scenes simply do not contain the emotional power and poignancy that they do on stage. Inge's play is about choices and consequences and the severity of those choices is rather lost in the translation to film.

All in all, Picnic is a fine film. Perhaps one of the finer movies to come out of the mainstream Hollywood studios of the 1950's. My suggestion is watch and enjoy the movie and, when given the chance, go see the stage version. Inge's play is one of the finest ever written. It is and American classic

Rating:
Summary: Picnic
Review: The on-screen chemistry between William Holden and Kim Novak is the best I have ever seen. The acting is superb by these two as well as by Cliff Robertson, Rosalind Russell, Susan Strasberg, etc. Even Nick Adams as the obnoxious paperboy is some of his best work, although on-screen time is very limited.

If you are in love now, or have ever been passionately in love, then this movie is a must see. I have waited a long time for it to become available again as I wore the other tape out. This has become my all time movie favorite.

Rating:
Summary: Picnic :
Review: Get your hands on a copy of this video! If you like William Holden and Kim Novack, you will love their chemistry in this movie. Picnic is a masterpiece of sensuality and characterizations. Just sit back and go to this picnic on Labor Day in a town with people you will never forget.

Rating:
Summary: Casting and mis-casting in Kansas
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: KIM ' N BILL IN PICNIC
Review: Let's be fair and objective for a while. If Joshua Logan's PICNIC has stayed and is going to stay in Movie history, there is a simple reason for it. The 15 minutes night scene during the picnic is a lesson of cinema that provides a priceless pleasure to the movie lover. The actors, the music and the editing perfectly match for minutes of sheer enchantment.

But the rest of the movie, in my opinion, suffers in comparison. It seemed to me that the screenplay delivers not so subtle ideas about sex, society and the life in a small american town. From time to time, I had the impression to watch one of these movies of the 50's adapted from a Tennessee Williams's play. Unfortunately, Joshua Logan was not Joseph L. Mankiewicz nor Elia Kazan so a lot of scenes of PICNIC are boring if not ridiculous.

Solely Rosalind Russell walks out of the movie without any reproach ; she is simply admirable in the role of an aging schoolteacher lost in the middle of a forest of heavy sexual symbols. Just try to watch PICNIC without forgetting to observe her hands and the objects she seized during the film.

But if you are an admirer of the Hollywood movies of the fifties, PICNIC surely deserves a good place on the shelves of your library.

A pre-VERTIGO DVD.

Rating:
Summary: A Vibrant, Stirring American Classic.
Review: Unlike Bogdanovich's "The Last Picture Show," which pretends to be a naturalistic, candid account of the death of small-town rural America in the fifties, but is really sensationlaistic and contrived, Josh Logan's adpatation of William Inge's "Picnic" places us squarely into that idyllic world before subtly suggesting the pressures that will soon bring about its collapse. Each of the characters is driven by deep and desperate desires to break free into a life of opportunity and fulfilliment, a world which upon retrospect may seem more limited than the community it was soon to replace. "Picnic" also contains the most erotically-charged scene in all of film. When Kim Novak sensuously swivel-hips down the steps leading to William Holden, accompanied by the "source-music" chords of "Moonglow," we become expectant of some orgasmic culmination. It's provided by the film's score--the superimposed "Picnic" theme--and by the graceful circular movement of Logan's camera. The two lovers bearly touch, and Holden couldn't dance. Yet the actors' electrical "presence" and Logan's construction of the scene are all that's required to engage us fully in the moment. The latter 3rd of the film, until the final scene, is more melodramatic and is not up to the first two-thirds, which must certainly represent the very best of Hollywood in the 1950s.

Rating:
Summary: A great American film
Review: I've seen "Picnic" more times that I could count, most recently on the excellent DVD edition. It was released in 1955 and powerfully evokes old-fashioned small town America, but the essence of it transcends time and place. The dilemmas and stages of life portrayed can only be fully appreciated by someone who's gone through some of them. It was always one of my mother's favorite movies, but you need to grow up to a certain extent before fully appreciating it. It's one of those films that gets better with repeated viewings, and changes even as you yourself change.

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.

Rating:
Summary: Picnic Redux
Review: "Picnic" stands alone as perhaps the most evocative film of 50's small town life. Ignoring briefly the Broadway success in its original incarnation, the film became another work entirely separate, an unselfconscious paean to the vicissitudes of white-bread America at mid-century. To watch it today is like being immersed in the golden glow of some lost memory, a totally transcendant movie experience. The new DVD transfer is startlingly lovely, crisp and clean from beginning to end, and the extras on the disc are all excellent, particularly the photo montage and the period trailers. If you've not seen this film recently give this a run and savor its timeless beauty.