Picnic (1955)

The real star of Picnic, one of the nominees for Best Picture of 1955, is William Holden's chest. From its first appearance on screen, during the opening credit sequence when Holden's character bathes in a waterfall, his chest demands attention. Almost everyone in the movie seems fascinated by it, and to be fair, it is a handsome piece of work, nicely muscled but not overly so, a bit smoother than I prefer but still worthy of the looks that it receives. In scene after scene, director Joshua Logan keeps finding ways to get Holden out of his shirt, and by the end of Picnic, we're as familiar with this piece of his anatomy as we are any other part of the plot.

Holden plays Hal Carter, a drifter who comes to a small Kansas town looking for an old college buddy of his, Alan Benson (a very young Cliff Robertson). Out of cash but desperate to try to look like a success, Hal first approaches an older woman, Mrs. Potts (Verna Felton), who not only feeds him breakfast and allows him to clean himself up before doing some chores in repayment for her kindness, she also encourages him to work without his shirt on. As she puts it, "You're a man. What's the difference?" Of course, next door to Mrs. Potts is the home of Flo Owens (Betty Field), and it's a house filled with women. There's Flo and her two daughters, Millie and Madge, and Flo's boarder, Rosemary Sidney (Rosalind Russell), a self-professed "old maid schoolteacher." It's actually Rosemary who first comments on Holden's chest although what she says could be construed as negative if it weren't for the way she strains to get a good look at him. Neither she nor anyone else in town has to strain for too long, though.

In one of those "only in fiction" coincidences, Madge (Kim Novak) is also Alan's girlfriend, and it isn't long before Hal has reunited with his friend, gotten the promise of a job at the Benson family grain elevator company, and been invited to attend the Labor Day picnic with everyone else. He takes as his "date" the younger Owens daughter, Millie (Susan Strasberg), and everyone has a lot of fun participating in the activities of the town picnic. A montage of contests includes a variety of images meant to evoke the small town life of middle American during the 1950s. There's a pie eating contest, a talent competition, a three-legged race, even a girl-carrying contest, all staged to full sentimental effect here.

Despite his masculine charms--or perhaps because of him--Hal causes everyone to react to him. Part of this would, of course, be due to his being new in town. However, the amount of attention lavished on him is quite remarkable. Even Alan's father comments on how broad-shouldered Hal is; Mr. Benson was a fan of Hal's during his glory days as a college football player. And Hal himself takes almost every opportunity, it seems, to talk about how physically fit he is and how demanding physically his life has been. He even points out how Alan's borrowed jacket doesn't fit him right because he really needs all of his suits to be custom tailored in order to meet the demands of his body.

Given all of this, is it any wonder that Madge finds Hal attractive? She herself has been the focus of a great deal of attention due to her physical appearance as well. She's supposed to be the prettiest girl in town, a natural choice to be the Queen of Neewollah (that's Halloween spelled backwards), but she's starting to resent being known only for her beauty. She and her sister constantly fight because Madge is supposed to be the pretty one and Millie the smart one, each one resenting the confining nature of that overarching characterization. However, in a small town like the one portrayed here, those roles are assigned early in life and seemingly never vary.

Near the end of the Labor Day picnic, after Madge has indeed been crowned queen and while the band is playing the romantic "Moonglow," Hal and Madge dance together and realize their attraction for each other. By this time, Rosemary has been drinking a little too much, thanks to her long-time boyfriend Howard Bevans (Arthur O'Connell) and wants to see Hal's legs. I suppose she's grown tired of just looking at his chest. Unfortunately--well, perhaps not that unfortunately--she accidentally tears Hal's shirt (another article of clothing borrowed from Alan), exposing his chest yet again. Embarrassed, Rosemary leaves with Howard, leaving Madge and Hal to drive off together in a car borrowed from Alan's family.

I hope you've been keeping track of all of the things that Hal has taken from Alan because he's not quite done yet. You know, don't you, that Hal and Madge are meant to be together, right? He's the epitome of masculinity, and she's the very model of femininity. She even has a crown and a sash to prove it. I've never been quite clear on what William Inge, the playwright who created Picnic, is trying to say with this pairing. Is there some lesson here about the right people, i.e., the perfect physical specimens, needing to be united and needing to escape a town that would force them into unhappy marriages (Madge's impending betrothal to Alan) or unfulfilling jobs (Hal's prospective job at the grain elevators)? Neither seems to be happy with being known simply for their physical attractiveness, yet both are stuck with being thought of in only that one way. Regardless of what Inge might have intended, it's clear almost from the first time they meet that Hal and Madge will wind up together.

By the way, if I haven't yet convinced you of the lavish attention given to Holden's chest in this movie, let me point out that also there's a swimming sequence somewhat early in the film whose main goal seems to be the inclusion of a scene where Hal and Alan are standing side-by-side changing out of their swimsuits. If you're unable to tell the difference between Holden's more masculine, well-defined and tanned chest compared to Robertson's pale, underdeveloped chest, well, you'll probably wind up very happy in a small and small-minded town like the one this movie portrays.


I have seen Picnic performed as a stage play several times in my life. Each time I see it on the stage or in this movie version, I pay particular attention to one scene. After returning to the Owens family house, Rosemary and Howard have a discussion about their future. Rosemary, perhaps acknowledging for the first time that she is getting older, begs Howard to marry her. Perhaps seeing the young couple of Hal and Madge, she realizes that too much of her life has already passed her by and Howard represents her last chance at happiness. It's a heartbreaking scene, and it takes a skilled actress to pull it off properly. Russell, who had already been acting in movies for more than twenty years by the time of Picnic, is just astonishing here. She was shamefully overlooked when the nominees for Best Supporting Actress were chosen, but her co-star, O'Connell, did make the cut for Best Supporting Actor.

Neither Russell nor O'Connell were Method actors, and Holden was himself a much more naturalistic performer. However, Picnic boasts performances by two women who had devoted a great deal of time to learning Method acting. It's interesting to watch Novak, in particular, during her scenes with Holden. She seems so very distant emotionally from him, and it's somewhat jarring when they must share an emotional moment such as when he confesses his attraction for her. Strasberg, whose father Lee was the most renowned acting teacher favoring the Method, similarly stands out from the rest of the cast. She uses props like a cigarette or a copy of The Ballad of the Sad Cafe as a part of her performance, yet overall, it just doesn't ring as true to me as the performances by long-time pros like Russell, O'Connell, and Holden. Novak's performance style would work to her advantage much better in later films like Vertigo and Bell, Book, and Candle, but she and Strasberg can stand here as early examples of a style of acting that would come to predominate film in the next decade.