Picnic (1955) | IMDB v2.1

Picnic (1955) Sept 1, 2017 16:25:20 GMT Rufus-T and spiderwort like this

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Post by kijii on Sept 1, 2017 16:25:20 GMT

Sept 1, 2017 14:46:45 GMT spiderwort said:

Given that it's Labor Day weekend, I wanted to acknowledge this film set in a small midwestern town during a Labor Day celebration.

Adapted from the Pulitzer Prize winning play by William Inge, shot by the great James Wong Howe, directed by Joshua Logan, and starring William Holden, Kim Novak, Rosalind Russell, Cliff Robertson, and Susan Strasberg, it is one of my personal favorites. Because it was shot on location in Kansas, where Inge was from, it has a wonderfully authentic 1950s small midwestern town feel to it.

As long as I live I'll never forget the beautiful scene in which Holden and Novak dance beneath colored lights to the tune of George Duning's great original score married to the popular song "Moonglow."

Dance scene in PICNIC

Anyone else a fan of this classic film?

I've always loved this movie, and always thought of the Inge plays as capturing middle-class America in the middle of America, and in the middle of the 20th Century. (Note, how his plays almost always take place in small mid-western or western towns and how well they capture this time and place of a bygone era.) More than any other playwrite, Inge lets me remember my time and place in American history. There was a type of drama there that had been untapped by other plays. That is, not all drama occurred in NYC, LA, or in old westerns as movies, of that time, might have you believe.

More than the dance scenes of this movie, I enjoy the way Joshua Logan (and James Wong Howe) took time to focus in on the picnic itself with the games, people, etc. It is interesting to imagine how this Labor Day picnic might have been filmed.

Rosalind Russell was great, here, as the spinster school teacher desperate to get married before it was too late. Howard seems to be her last chance.

The Madge Owens/Hall Carter relationship mirrored that of Rosemary Sidney/Howard Bevans in some respects.

I also loved Vera Felton as Miss Potts and her conversation with Flo (Betty Field):

Flo Owens: You liked him, didn't you Helen?

Helen Potts: Yes, I did. I got so used to things as they were: Everything so prim, the geranium in the window, the smell of mama's medicines. And then he walked in, and it was different! He clomped through the place like he was still outdoors. There was a man in the place and it seemed good!

The powerful score was also great, as Novak ran after Holden at the end of the movie---powerful stuff.

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I never miss a chance to plead with the forces that be to TRY HARD to restore and digitize Dark at the Top of the Stairs. It is another Inge play that I don't believe has been restored and will be impossible to watch unless it is restored and digitized. I think that the only living cast member that might push for this are Angela Lansbury and Shirley Knight.