Picnic (1955)

Directed by Joshua Logan. Starring William Holden, Kim Novak, Susan Strasberg, Rosalind Russell, Betty Field, Arthur O’Connell, Cliff Robertson, Verna Felton, Nick Adams, Raymond Bailey, Reta Shaw.

It’s no picnic to watch sometimes. This adaptation of William Inge’s Pulitzer-winning play is an especially bad style of romance (and not in the way that Gaga described)—one where the leads don’t belong together. Sure, they have a dance scene that smolders, but there’s no real romance there, no deeper bond than satisfying the need to fill the emptiness of their lives, which might have worked within a caustic treatment instead of an optimistic-yet-doomed one. He’s a drifter too far removed from his glory days, she’s the eldest daughter at the house he stops at to find work, and, frankly, an older couple played by schoolmarm Russell and patient shopkeep Russell is more interesting. Though a few of the supporting performances are effective and the less-conspicuous passages of dialogue are unblemished by pretension, it feels too staged to be convincing (taking place over just a couple of days during Labor Day weekend, with the actors speaking toward corners of the camera instead of each other), and the eruption of melodramatic hysterics near the end of the picnic centerpiece leaves one wondering if the filmmakers were as soused as some of the characters were at the time. There are also key problems in the casting; not only is Holden is way too old for his part, but the central female roles are all screwed up—seemingly every young man in town lusts for Novak even though her younger sister (Strasberg) is smarter, more genuine, and more attractive. (It can’t just be a weird aversion to tomboys, can it?). Won Oscars for its editing and art direction. Film debut for Shirley Knight in an uncredited bit part.

49/100