Picnic (1955)

Best movie of this year hands down!

A Masterpiece!

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Picnic (1955) A big reputation for a stiff film with some terrific parts. If you start, do stick it out to the night party at the end of the picnic, and to the final emotional scenes. The filming, and even the slightly outrageous Midwest customs (the entire town of people raising their arms in praise at one point), are both great. James Wong Howe knocked himself out making this movie really gorgeous. If the women (and William Holden) are only as good as they are beautiful, you might say the same with the movie, which is mostly about appearances. Maybe that's part of its brilliance, intended or not. It also might reflect a superficial but partly true version of 1950s America. Or Kansas, for starters. The real intentions here are terrific, and there are elements that begin to draw you in. That is: innocence, striving for happiness, failure (and acceptance of that), and good old carnal lust. I find both Holden and Kim Novak relatively stiff actors, and so maybe they contribute to the feeling in the film. Or maybe they are perfectly cast in a film that doesn't try for honest depth. It also doesn't try for something truly steamy and emotionally sweeping like a Douglas Sirk film (see his "All that Heaven Allows" from the same year). Director Joshua Logan might actually be striving for something that stays restrained, like the people in the film. Except maybe Rosalind Russell, by the way, who is a genuine hoot. The famous dance scene on the dock under colored lights makes you nostalgic for some great old times, not quite innocent but certainly pure in their simplicity and beauty. Both leading actors were famously bad dancers, so the camera zooms in to their shoulders on up, letting the ambiance of the night take over, with fifty Chinese lanterns in different colors hovering. Novak plays the "beautiful" one, but her younger sister (Betty Field) has all the pure beauty here, and the conflict lets Holden get confused and torn in two, almost literally (once Russell gets involved). It's all a bit superficial-spotlights (probably some standard studio Kliegs) make it almost absurdly dramatic. But then, we sometimes say that about Sirk, too, and other widescreen dramas of the time. Maybe we'll gradually come not just to enjoy them but to revere them. For now, there is a bit too much artifice, and bit too little genuine rich depth and human exploration. The material is ripe, for sure. And I have to say I enjoyed it all, without ever quite being convinced or affected.

Holden is just too old here. His romance with Novak is unbelievable. Russell and O'Connell's story is truer. Strasberg is terrific. Small town seems sex-obsessed with Holden and Novak, so not sure why people hold this movie so dear to their hearts.

At my house, we watch Picnic every Labor Day weekend. It's a fantastic movie, and thankfully, the plot revolves around the September holiday, so I get to watch it every year.William Holden plays a no-good drifter who shows up in a small Americana town and shakes up the residents' established paths. I'm not really a William Holden fan, so I would have preferred Paul Newman to have been cast as the lead, but he wasn't a big star yet in 1955. Turns out, Paul was the understudy in the Broadway production of Picnic, so my casting instincts were pretty good! Betty Field has two squabbling daughters, Kim Novak, the beautiful but not very bright older daughter, and Susan Strasberg, young, gawky, and jealous of her sister's beauty. Kim is engaged to the well-to-do Cliff Robertson, but when William Holden shows up, her head turns, much to her mother's dismay. Rosalind Russell plays an old maid school teacher, desperate for her long-time beau Arthur O'Connell to marry her, and although her scenes are my worst part of the film, I feel it might not be fair to blame her performance. It might be her written character who gets on my nerves.This William Inge classic is a staple on must-see lists, and I suggest you add it to yours. There are unforgettable lines, like Kim Novak's, "I get so tired of just being told I'm pretty," and life lessons that really make you think: "You don't love someone because they're perfect." It's also a wonderful slice of nostalgia, taking place during a time when Labor Day was revered by all as the last weekend of summer vacation. Nowadays, school starts in early or mid-August, so the magic of Labor Day is no longer felt, and is even hard to imagine. But if you can, try to imagine that last precious couple of days of summer when anything is possible, and the most beautiful girl in town can be crowned queen for an evening, the same evening she falls in love with someone who thinks he doesn't deserve her.

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.