'Picnic' is one of those old movies that I've been familiar with for 40 years. It has been a sticker in my collection in that I turn to it now and then for some sort of indescribable fix. I can't put my finger on it but there is something about it that clings to the visual memory. But then when I do watch it after a long hiatus I wonder what I ever thought was so good about it when it possesses so many flaws and laughable dialogue.
Part of the attraction, a major part, is the physical magnetism of William Holden, who was too old for this role but managed to convey a compelling animal magnetism that rivets the eye and the imagination. There are just too many lines in his forehead to convince as a 20- something drifter. And the impetuousness of the character, as written, sits uneasily with the older actor.
But somehow Holden makes it work, though he wasn't the greatest actor in the world he was a great star and that's what this movie is all about. Kim Novak is a better actor than Holden and if you can get past the horrible mess technicolor makes of her rat's nest of a hair-do you can see clearly how versatile this often-maligned actress was. I watched her carefully this last viewing and was struck by how she was very much the earlier prototype of Patricia Arquette (Lost Highway). Novak also has Arquette's sweet/gritty quality that makes her headlong rush towards sensuality convincing.
The script is structurally brilliant but the dialogue is often risible. 'Picnic' is indeed a sexy film, almost over the top in camp innuendo, and the dialogue plays this up. There they are, a community of aging women and sexually naive girls, then bammo, here comes a studly hunk out of a passing box car and all hell breaks lose. All the women go bonkers, overwhelmed by long-dormant hormones that are suddenly aroused by Holden's atmosphere choking testosterone level. I last watched this with a younger friend who had never seen this movie before and he was swept away by the barometric pressure of repressed sexuality and spent the rest of the movie making up his own highly pornographic dialogue, which was funny for awhile but, being young, went on for too long and ruined the best parts of the movie which come near the middle and at the end.
Every character in this film is effected by Holden's sexuality, even, especially, the men. Nick Adam's young dude inspired much imaginative chatter from my young friend, especially the scene at the lake with everyone in swimming trunks.
As 'Picnic' was made in the mid 1950s it is extremely coy about sex in that you don't see any, but it's going on behind the scene. There are two acts of fornication, off screen, that are lightly alluded to. When Holden moves and dances the camera cuts him off mid-crotch, rather like Elvis being edited from the waste down on the Ed Sullivan show. But Holden's attributes are abundantly obvious when he's just standing there presenting no momentary sexual threat. But the dancing scene between Holden and Novak is unadulterated eroticism and is one of the reasons this film remains in the forefront of 1950s melodrama.
Having said that, there are some highly charged scenes of the underground sexual stampede in progress. Rosalind Russell plays a frustrated middle-aged school teacher who fears a lonely life in a boarding house with other old women. Her hormones go ballistic when she claps her eyes on Holden. There is a very intense scene at the night-time picnic in the park in which Russell gets drunk and throws herself at Holden, ripping his shirt in shreds at the end. Later she gets her half-gay boyfriend, Arthur O'Connell, to screw her then marry her. Potboiler stuff!
The poorer technical aspects of 'Picnic' are the primitive ugly technicolor plus careless editing and continuity. The switch from medium shot dialogue to close-up reveals a lack of attention to detail, like the sudden change in hair-styles between the two shots, and so on. The backgrounds for little trips in the mustard colored Lincoln convertible are clearly filmed on a set and look fake but that was par for the course in those days. There are some stunning visuals of sunsets and wide-angle views of the Kansas prairie. It is the cinematography, in spite of the technicolor, that keeps me coming back to this movie.
This film shows the 1950 Midwest ethos exactly as it really was. My young satiric friend found sinister undertones in the Neewollah (that's Halloween backwards) ritual when the Queen of the picnic comes floating down the lagoon in her swan boat. But those were innocent times, not universally rife with religious repression and social unrest, as the current press will have us believe as it tries to rewrite the history of that era. People, generally speaking, were much happier then than they are now.
'Picnic' is a strange movie; a classic of homo-eroticism and simmering sexual desire and, as time passes, ever more camp, and a sui generis display of the Method school of acting. But it will hold its place in the annals of film if only as a museum piece with some sultry scenes of sexual mania unleashed in a quiet Kansas town.
A staple of any complete film buff's library.
Part of the attraction, a major part, is the physical magnetism of William Holden, who was too old for this role but managed to convey a compelling animal magnetism that rivets the eye and the imagination. There are just too many lines in his forehead to convince as a 20- something drifter. And the impetuousness of the character, as written, sits uneasily with the older actor.
But somehow Holden makes it work, though he wasn't the greatest actor in the world he was a great star and that's what this movie is all about. Kim Novak is a better actor than Holden and if you can get past the horrible mess technicolor makes of her rat's nest of a hair-do you can see clearly how versatile this often-maligned actress was. I watched her carefully this last viewing and was struck by how she was very much the earlier prototype of Patricia Arquette (Lost Highway). Novak also has Arquette's sweet/gritty quality that makes her headlong rush towards sensuality convincing.
The script is structurally brilliant but the dialogue is often risible. 'Picnic' is indeed a sexy film, almost over the top in camp innuendo, and the dialogue plays this up. There they are, a community of aging women and sexually naive girls, then bammo, here comes a studly hunk out of a passing box car and all hell breaks lose. All the women go bonkers, overwhelmed by long-dormant hormones that are suddenly aroused by Holden's atmosphere choking testosterone level. I last watched this with a younger friend who had never seen this movie before and he was swept away by the barometric pressure of repressed sexuality and spent the rest of the movie making up his own highly pornographic dialogue, which was funny for awhile but, being young, went on for too long and ruined the best parts of the movie which come near the middle and at the end.
Every character in this film is effected by Holden's sexuality, even, especially, the men. Nick Adam's young dude inspired much imaginative chatter from my young friend, especially the scene at the lake with everyone in swimming trunks.
As 'Picnic' was made in the mid 1950s it is extremely coy about sex in that you don't see any, but it's going on behind the scene. There are two acts of fornication, off screen, that are lightly alluded to. When Holden moves and dances the camera cuts him off mid-crotch, rather like Elvis being edited from the waste down on the Ed Sullivan show. But Holden's attributes are abundantly obvious when he's just standing there presenting no momentary sexual threat. But the dancing scene between Holden and Novak is unadulterated eroticism and is one of the reasons this film remains in the forefront of 1950s melodrama.
Having said that, there are some highly charged scenes of the underground sexual stampede in progress. Rosalind Russell plays a frustrated middle-aged school teacher who fears a lonely life in a boarding house with other old women. Her hormones go ballistic when she claps her eyes on Holden. There is a very intense scene at the night-time picnic in the park in which Russell gets drunk and throws herself at Holden, ripping his shirt in shreds at the end. Later she gets her half-gay boyfriend, Arthur O'Connell, to screw her then marry her. Potboiler stuff!
The poorer technical aspects of 'Picnic' are the primitive ugly technicolor plus careless editing and continuity. The switch from medium shot dialogue to close-up reveals a lack of attention to detail, like the sudden change in hair-styles between the two shots, and so on. The backgrounds for little trips in the mustard colored Lincoln convertible are clearly filmed on a set and look fake but that was par for the course in those days. There are some stunning visuals of sunsets and wide-angle views of the Kansas prairie. It is the cinematography, in spite of the technicolor, that keeps me coming back to this movie.
This film shows the 1950 Midwest ethos exactly as it really was. My young satiric friend found sinister undertones in the Neewollah (that's Halloween backwards) ritual when the Queen of the picnic comes floating down the lagoon in her swan boat. But those were innocent times, not universally rife with religious repression and social unrest, as the current press will have us believe as it tries to rewrite the history of that era. People, generally speaking, were much happier then than they are now.
'Picnic' is a strange movie; a classic of homo-eroticism and simmering sexual desire and, as time passes, ever more camp, and a sui generis display of the Method school of acting. But it will hold its place in the annals of film if only as a museum piece with some sultry scenes of sexual mania unleashed in a quiet Kansas town.
A staple of any complete film buff's library.