Picnic was released by Columbia Pictures on December 7, 1955
Director: Joshua Logan
Picnic cast: Willian Holden, Kim Novak, Rosalind Russell, Cliff Robertson, Betty Field, Susan Strasberg, Arthur O’Connell, Verna Felton, and Reta Shaw
For a long time now, Picnic has been one of my favorite films. Not because the story is so compelling, or the performances so spellbinding. No, what I find to be so mesmerizing about Picnic is its alluring setting and the beautiful way it was recorded on film. This is what resonates with me, and it does so because it is just so very familiar. Even though I’ve never been to Hutchinson, Kansas where the filming took place, I’ve been there before. I know those places and those people, at least from a superficial perspective.
In the late 50s and early 60s, out in the hinterlands of east San Diego County, where I grew up in a mid-century suburb, you could still see the remnants of the area’s rural past. Farm and ranch houses, sitting on just a fraction of their original acreage, were scattered all about the emerging subdivisions as were the bits and pieces of the once omnipresent orange groves. Every prop, and every stick of furniture in this film looks like it came out of my aunt Mame’s house (yes, I had an auntie Mame, but she didn’t sing or dance). I swear, the costumes must have come directly from the Sears Roebuck catalog, where four generations of our family did our clothes shopping. Were it not for all those damn movie stars getting in the way, I could almost be convinced I was watching a home movie.
But it’s not a home movie, it’s a real one, and I think it’s a good one. The story, written by William Inge, first appeared on Broadway in 1953. After a successful run, it was acquired by Columbia Pictures and put before the cameras in May of 1955, and released that December. The cast included a major star – William Holden, a soon to be a major star – Kim Novak, a legend – Rosalind Russell, a couple of prominent character actors – Arthur O’Connell and Verna Felton, a few journeyman – Cliff Robertson and Susan Strasberg, and a pair of Broadway veterans – Betty Field and Rita Shaw plucked from the original Broadway cast. The director, Joshua Logan, also came from the Broadway production.
The story goes like this. After knocking about for too many years, Hal Carter (Holden) turns up in a small town on Labor Day hoping to find a job with his old college buddy, Allen Benson (Robinson), whose father is very big in the wheat business. But before he finds his friend, he finds the ladies – all six of them, and they got issues! Neighbor (and matchmaker), Mrs. Potts (Felton), is a kind old soul struggling with her invalid mother’s care. Next door is Mrs. Owens (Field) and her two daughters Madge (Novak), and Milly (Strasberg), and their boarder Rosemary (Russell). Across the river is the unsuspecting Howard (O’Connell).
Everybody is after something: Hal wants to settle down; Milly wants to get out of town; Flo wants Madge to marry Allen; Allen wants Madge; Madge wants to be appreciated for something other than her looks. Rosemary wants a wedding, and Howard just wants to relax with a drink in front of his 21-inch TV. All go to the Labor Day picnic together, and that’s where things go awry. Just before the credits role, Madge runs off with Hal, poor old Howard is maneuvered into a marriage to Rosemary, and the rest are left to soldier on as best they can.
Picnic was a smash when it appeared in theaters. The tale of alienation and repressed desires, though tame stuff today, was groundbreaking in the mid-1950s. Holden’s shirtless scene at the basketball hoop was a film first that set women’s hearts all aflutter from coast to coast. But it wasn’t until Hal and Madge got together on the dance floor, that the sensuality meter hit 10! The steamy, half-speed, mating dance, has since become the most memorable sequence in the film, and a classic of 1950s Hollywood cinema.
The actual picnic segment, with all its antiquated public activities and diversions, is practically an archeological find on celluloid. We just don’t do things like that anymore. It’s a perfect, and very respectful, rendering of a time, and a place, and a people that are long, long gone. One of my favorite images among all the beautiful images created by legendary cinematographer James Wong Howe, is the Picnic tableau, with the group all leisurely gathered around the goodies, in a semi-circle, with the river at their backs. From beginning to end, this is one of the best 1950s celluloid time capsules Hollywood ever produced. But it’s not just a visual treat. George Duning’s wistfully romantic score sets just the right tone for this sepia-styled drama. It’s one of those classic, 1950s film scores that will whisk you right off to small-town America at the drop of the needle.
Now, as much as I really like this movie, I know that many today, especially the younger ones, would probably not share my enthusiasm. I think, in the 2020s, Picnic is just too much of its own time to be enjoyed as anything other than an anachronism. But that doesn’t mean we can’t enjoy it for the glorious, cinematic antique that it is. And that goes for the old-fashioned performances as well. I know that everyone involved tends to go a bit theatrical at times, but to me, even the semi-stagy acting has a certain, vintage charm.
It’s not a perfect film. The attraction is more about the setting than the material, but I think the setting alone is enough to recommend this film. Shot in and around small-town America, in settings that certainly seem to be unmolested by the production crew, Picnic has preserved a peek into the past that few others can match.
Trust me, once you’ve seen it, you’ll never be able to hear the words Labor Day again and not think of this evocative film.
FYI
Picnic has scores of fan sites on the internet, and I’ve visited a few that focus on the filming locations, and it’s amazing to see that, after 67 years, most of them are still intact and very recognizable. What’s really incredible are the two Potts/Owens houses that appear almost as they did all those many years ago—how is that even possible?