spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 14:46:45 GMT
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 PICNICAnyone else a fan of this classic film?
|
|
|
Post by mattgarth on Sept 1, 2017 15:04:22 GMT
Thanks for the appropriate weekend thread, Spider. BIG fan -- no, make that HUGE. Love Arthur O'Connell's character (an Oscar-nominee for it) which he created in the original Broadway production.
Rosalind Russell refused to accept studio (Columbia) consideration for a SUPPORTING Oscar for the film after a 20-year status as a leading lady. Too bad -- her riveting performance as 'Rosemary the Schoolteacher' was certainly a worthy nominee and a possible winner (Jo Van Fleet took that prize for her short but poignant role in EAST OF EDEN). Eileen Heckart played the part on stage.
Hairy-chested Holden had to shave that part of his muscular anatomy for the role (see it in all its glory in the swimming pool scene in SUNSET BLVD). He was probably too old for the role (37, and looked it) while 'Hal Carter' was supposed to be in his mid-to-late 20s (character originator Ralph Meeker didn't look it either). But his image is so indelible in the part that really no one else could have played it -- not even a James Dean.
Holden did not like his character very much, and was petrified making the dance sequence -- because HE COULD NOT DANCE! (but he still managed to fake it beautifully).
Paul Newman played the Cliff Robertson role in the play, and Joanne Woodward was Janice Rule's understudy as 'Madge' -- that's where the eventual long-married celebrity couple first met. Kim Stanley played younger sister 'Millie.' Quite a cast.
The picnic sequences (pure Midwestern mid-50s Americana) were wonderfully created for the film, and do not appear in the play (Hal dismisses the idea of it, telling Madge: "We ain't goin' to no G-D picnic!")
|
|
|
Post by Rufus-T on Sept 1, 2017 15:10:26 GMT
The dance scene is the first image I have when I saw the subject heading. This was one of the most colorful film. I read criticism that William Holden was too old for the role. I don't remember if the movie mentioned his age. He was so good in the part that I never thought about the age he was supposed to play.
|
|
|
Post by snsurone on Sept 1, 2017 16:10:21 GMT
To be honest, I wish that a de-glammed Marilyn Monroe had played Madge. Even within her limitations, I think she was a better actress than the wooden Kim Novak.
|
|
|
Post by kijii on Sept 1, 2017 16:25:20 GMT
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): The powerful score was also great, as Novak ran after Holden at the end of the movie---powerful stuff. ======================== 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.
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Sept 1, 2017 17:53:28 GMT
spiderwort you once said you gonna visit every place where this movie was made, offcourse it's a great challange.... but did you? Sterling Lake Kansas, looks cozy....
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 19:09:39 GMT
Thanks for the appropriate weekend thread, Spider. BIG fan -- no, make that HUGE. Love Arthur O'Connell's character (an Oscar-nominee for it) which he created in the original Broadway production.
Rosalind Russell refused to accept studio (Columbia) consideration for a SUPPORTING Oscar for the film after a 20-year status as a leading lady. Too bad -- her riveting performance as 'Rosemary the Schoolteacher' was certainly a worthy nominee and a possible winner (Jo Van Fleet took that prize for her short but poignant role in EAST OF EDEN). Eileen Heckart played the part on stage.
Hairy-chested Holden had to shave that part of his muscular anatomy for the role (see it in all its glory in the swimming pool scene in SUNSET BLVD). He was probably too old for the role (37, and looked it) while 'Hal Carter' was supposed to be in his mid-to-late 20s (character originator Ralph Meeker didn't look it either). But his image is so indelible in the part that really no one else could have played it -- not even a James Dean.
Holden did not like his character very much, and was petrified making the dance sequence -- because HE COULD NOT DANCE! (but he still managed to fake it beautifully).
Paul Newman played the Cliff Robertson role in the play, and Joanne Woodward was Janice Rule's understudy as 'Madge' -- that's where the eventual long-married celebrity couple first met. Kim Stanley played younger sister 'Millie.' Quite a cast.
The picnic sequences (pure Midwestern mid-50s Americana) were wonderfully created for the film, and do not appear in the play (Hal dismisses the idea of it, telling Madge: "We ain't goin' to no G-D picnic!")
Oh, Matt, thanks for all the wonderful background. I know it all, of course, but I'm glad you're the one to tell it. And I agree with you about the "opening up" of the play - in this case, on location, it worked so beautifully. The picnic scenes were wonderful. And here's something you may or may not know: Independence, Kansas, Inge's hometown, actually has a Neewalah celebration every year (or I believe they still do). And I, too, thought O'Connell's performance was wonderful - he doesn't get mentioned that often. Inge (along with Kazan) was my great inspiration who started me down the road to the theatre and films. And while I was fortunate to get to spend time with and know Kazan, sadly, Inge left before I had a chance. But I did attend his memorial service in Beverly Hills, and when I did I sat next to Arthur O'Connell, who was overwhelmed with sadness. It was heartbreaking to all who were there.
Anyway, so glad to hear your love of this film - and I suspect the play, too. Since you know the picnic didn't happen in it, I'm sure you've read it, or perhaps even seen it. I do love the film, but oh, I would have loved to have seen it on Broadway with that cast.
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 19:14:34 GMT
The dance scene is the first image I have when I saw the subject heading. This was one of the most colorful film. I read criticism that William Holden was too old for the role. I don't remember if the movie mentioned his age. He was so good in the part that I never thought about the age he was supposed to play. Yes, Rufus, he was a bit old, but it never bothered me. I can't imagine anyone else in the role, actually. Something about those added years, for me, added a vulnerability and desperation that really worked for the character.
|
|
|
Post by kijii on Sept 1, 2017 19:28:21 GMT
I do think I enjoyed the characters more than the dancing in this movie---no MM for me, thanks.
Here is a paraphrased conversation from the end of movie between Flo Ownes and Helen Potts after Novak ran after Holden:
Flo Owens: Oh there is SO much I wanted to teach her..... Helen Potts: Let her find out on her own, Flo........
One can almost imagine three (maybe four) stages of women with men (boys) in a midwestern town:
Susan Strasberg - emerging but not yet interested in boys. Kim Novak - emerged but not yet realized relationship with men. Rosalind Russell - Needing not to be an old spinster schoolteacher and more. Verna Felton - Too late.........
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 19:34:49 GMT
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): The powerful score was also great, as Novak ran after Holden at the end of the movie---powerful stuff. ======================== 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. Love and agree with all your wonderful, even beautiful comments, kijii, especially about the small midwestern town milieu of a certain era. You've got it so right! Inge was actually always writing about his hometown of Independence, Kansas. It was his blessing and his curse, so to speak, but it stood by him well creatively.
And, like you, I so wish Warner Brothers would release The Dark at the Top of the Stairs on DVD. I can't understand why they haven't - or didn't years ago. I have a VHS I recorded off the air back in the days when they occasionally ran it on tv, but that's starting to deteriorate. And you're right about Knight and Lansbury, though they are older now and probably have a lot of other things on their mind. I try to attend the William Inge Festival in his hometown every few years. The last time I went Shirley Knight was there and they played Dark, and then she talked about it. That was a treat. And I one year at the DGA Awards I had a chance to tell director Delbert Mann how much I liked the film and how much it had meant in my life.
One last story about that film: I went to an event to raise money for the Actor's Fund in LA several years ago and Angela was there, backstage seeing some friends I was waiting to see. I will always regret that I didn't tell her in person this thing I'm about to tell you now, but I didn't know her personally and didn't want to intrude on her conversation with my friends. So later, when I was leaving, her husband and I were headed to our cars that just happened to be parked side by side. And I asked him if he would please tell Angela how much I always loved her in her role of Mavis Pruitt. I swear his face lit up like the sun with a huge smile, and he said, "Oh, of course! That's one of her favorite roles of all time." Well, needless to say that made us both very happy.
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 19:44:41 GMT
spiderwort you once said you gonna visit every place where this movie was made, offcourse it's a great challange.... but did you? Sterling Lake Kansas, looks cozy.... Yes, teleadm, I did. Six or seven different small towns, I think, in south central Kansas, not southeast Kansas where Inge was from. It had more prairie and a better look - especially for the picnic twilight scene. I have ancestors buried in some of those towns - well, actually I have a couple buried in his home town, too. Anyway, it was quite a treat. And here's something you may not know: Shirley Knight, who made her debut in Inge's The Dark at the Top of the Stairs was from a small town nearby and was actually an un-credited extra in Picnic.
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 19:52:18 GMT
I do think I enjoyed the characters more than the dancing in this movie---no MM for me, thanks. Here is a paraphrased conversation from the end of movie between Flo Ownes and Helen Potts after Novak ran after Holden: Flo Owens: Oh there is SO much I wanted to teach her..... Helen Potts: Let her find out on her own, Flo........ One can almost imagine three (maybe four) stages of women with men (boys) in a midwestern town: Susan Strasberg - emerging but not yet interested in boys. Kim Novak - emerged but not yet realized relationship with men. Rosalind Russell - Needing not to be an old spinster schoolteacher and more. Verna Felton - Too late......... Oh, kijii, you're breaking my heart! There's always a deep poignance in any Inge work, and you're touching upon that so well. The ending seems a happy one, but we both know that it probably won't work out and that Madge will be hurt. Inge never wanted that ending; he always felt that in the end Madge would stay home. But Josh Logan, who directed it on Broadway as well as the screen, coerced him into writing it the way we have always known it. He thought it would be more successful, and successful it was! Years later Inge wrote his own version, called Summer Brave, where Madge doesn't leave. It's not as good a play (he made some other changes, too), and it wouldn't have been as successful. And while I agree with him that she would not have left, I still love the combination of joy and veiled sadness at the end of the film (and play) as we've always known it.
(And as for loving the characters more than the dancing, of course!!! I just happen to love the cinematic virtues of that scene in particular.)
|
|
|
Post by teleadm on Sept 1, 2017 20:09:03 GMT
The Dark at the Top of the Stairs has been on wish list for a very long time
|
|
|
Post by Rufus-T on Sept 1, 2017 21:03:25 GMT
The powerful score was also great, as Novak ran after Holden at the end of the movie---powerful stuff. That final scene Novak ran after Holden as the camera pan to follow the train put the cherry on top for a wonderful film.
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 21:39:45 GMT
That final scene Novak ran after Holden as the camera pan to follow the train put the cherry on top for a wonderful film. A note about that scene in case you don't already know it. The (later) great cinematographer, Haskell Wexler ( Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? among others), was the camera operator for that shot. He once told the story of how terrified he was that he would fail in shooting it and disappoint James Wong Howe. As it turns out it was a one-take wonder.
|
|
|
Post by hi224 on Sept 1, 2017 22:04:07 GMT
I have a question did you feel Holden was miscast at all?.
|
|
|
Post by wmcclain on Sept 1, 2017 22:23:06 GMT
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 22:24:29 GMT
I have a question did you feel Holden was miscast at all?. As I said earlier, I think he was too old for the part, but there was some vulnerability and desperation that that added to his performance, which for me made it all the more powerful. So I've always felt he was fine in the role. Ralph Meeker played it on Broadway when he was in his thirties, so he wasn't the right age either. I did see a couple of tv film versions of it with younger actors, Josh Brolin for one, and they were quite mediocre - but then the directors didn't come close to understanding how to direct Inge. And I saw Gregory Harrison and Jennifer Jason Leigh do it at the Ahmanson in LA, and it wasn't good either - again because the director didn't understand Inge (and he was a director who should have known better). In the right circumstances, with the right director, maybe a younger actor would be a good thing. It would be interesting to see, certainly. But for better or worse, for decades William Holden has been the benchmark for me, and when I think of PICNIC, I just see him in the role.
|
|
|
Post by hi224 on Sept 1, 2017 22:30:43 GMT
I have a question did you feel Holden was miscast at all?. As I said earlier, I think he was too old for the part, but there was some vulnerability and desperation that that added to his performance, which for me made it all the more powerful. So I've always felt he was fine in the role. Ralph Meeker played it on Broadway when he was in his thirties, so he wasn't the right age either. I did see a couple of tv film versions of it with younger actors, Josh Brolin for one, and they were quite mediocre - but then the directors didn't come close to understanding how to direct Inge. And I saw Gregory Harrison and Jennifer Jason Leigh do it at the Ahmanson in LA, and it wasn't good either - again because the director didn't understand Inge (and he was a director who should have known better). In the right circumstances, with the right director, maybe a younger actor would be a good thing. It would be interesting to see, certainly. But for better or worse, for decades William Holden has been the benchmark for me, and when I think of PICNIC, I just see him in the role. who would you cast nowadays as well.
|
|
spiderwort
Junior Member
@spiderwort
Posts: 2,525
Likes: 9,326
|
Post by spiderwort on Sept 1, 2017 22:39:40 GMT
who would you cast nowadays as well. I have no idea. I don't go to a lot of new films anymore, and many of the actors I think would have worked are now too old. There is probably some talented actor in his late twenties who would be perfect, but I can't think of one right now. If I come up with a name, I'll let you know. Or maybe someone else will have a suggestion.
|
|