Picnic (1955)

Sadly Over-hyped

Please don't spend money on this.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

"At a PICNIC, everybody disappears." This line from one of the creepiest-of-schlock, unintentionally strange and eerie motion pictures ever, proving that, in many cases, Film Noir or Science-Fiction are the purest, safest forms of cinema when delving into the 1950's...Starring William Holden, ten years too old for the part of a grownup-kid-type, about a decade out of college visiting the small town where old pal Cliff Robertson romances local beauty Kim Novak, whose little sister, played by future PSYCH-OUT starlet Susan Strasberg, innocently flirts with Holden's mysterious gentleman nomad who's been around the block more than anyone in the conservative setting: where the titular PICNIC is the centerpiece including Novac being worshiped in a swan boat while the town sings a dirge-paced "Ain't She Sweet" along with a barber shop quartet lined across, before and beyond a storybook bridge...The stagy (clumsily based on a play) dialogue is god-awful, including a description of dusk being clouds having one last "scrap" in the sky, or when Holden - after his (as seen in every poster) shirt's torn to partially display his famously muscular SUNSET BLVD bod (itself looking decades younger than his handsomely devilish, timeworn mug) - says, "She saw through me like an X-Ray machine," or, to Novak, about to wait beneath her window till the promise of a technicolor dawn, "You make me feel important... No! You make me feel... Patient!"And right beforehand: "I'm getting tired of... just being told I'm... pretty," complains Novak as she's deliberately driven off from the PICNIC by Holden's primal beast, resembling more of an insurance salesman on a hyperactive bender than an ex-convict back on the run from the law, and this time for basically... kissing the prettiest girl in town in front of his rich buddy/her pseudo boyfriend, Robertson, whose incessant whine, along with Holden's monotone delivery when he's not feigning drunken youth in an awkward, goofy fashion, makes mincemeat of two otherwise great actors. "Let me go, you bum," Robertson shouts to his rougher/tougher ex-crony: "You no good... hobo!" All to the sound of that decade's type of unintentionally sinister, fiercely melodramatic score locked in haunting reverb. That is, until an occasional waist-high-lustful mamba-beat ensues as the girl's become sporadically mesmerized by Holden's boisterous yet enigmatic persona like daft, dizzy schoolgirls to a flashing image on a picture show screen. Which could be the intention all along. The characters are both the performers and audience. (Taken from Cultfilmfreaks.com)

I don't know why this film makes such an impression, remembered somehow fondly since first seen many decades ago. On any realistic reckoning it's hopeless. Kim Novak is the most wooden film star of all time, with only two facial expressions of which she infallibly chooses the wrong one for whichever scene she's doing. Both Novak and Holden are ludicrously old for their screen parts: Holden's scene with his 'father' towards the end is supposed to be touching but comes out as music-hall comedy. The direction is irredeemably stagy with no concessions to the cine camera -- you expect heavy velvet curtains to close on the stage at any moment. The melodramatic bits lack drama, the supposedly touching romantic bits are played as farce, and the farcical bits fall as flat as a village pantomime. Susan Strasberg and Rosalind Russell steal the whole thing, both natural movie actresses, as indeed one would expect of anyone called Strasberg. Apart from them, and a couple of other minor parts, it's a serious train crash. And yet...

Many fine scenes in this film make it one to see. Many fine performances as well. However, there are some scenes that are weak and performances in such scenes that aren't as strong as others. Some dialog that doesn't ring true, meaning that it doesn't seem as if it would actually be said that way in reality, but instead is merely a way to get to a point being made.So there are a few stodgy scenes that bring the film in whole down from greatness, to being very good. That doesn't mean it isn't a good film, as it is, just a few missteps along the way.This isn't due to the emotional yet illogical behavior of the leads. Of course, logically we know that the relationship for Hal and Maddie is pretty well doomed to fail just as her mother's did, but such is the nature of people in love, even with a love based upon first impression physical attraction. So the ending of the two lovers going to meet in Tulsa on separate transports is quite telling and foreboding. That in itself nearly wipes away all of the weak scenes.

A former college football star drifts into a small town on Labor Day, disrupting the lives of the locals. Director Logan came from a stage background and he never adapted to the film medium. He did not understand that film acting requires more subtlety than stage acting. Holden is certainly not known for overplaying, but Logan pushes him in that direction. He's not helped by some of his lines, particularly his repeatedly calling Novak "Baby." Yes, Inge's play won the Pulitzer Prize, but it is overly dramatic and contains some really corny lines. Russell is quite energetic. Novak, on the other hand, seems to be on a sedative. O'Connell and Strasberg come off best.