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Picnic (1955)
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Overview
User Rating:
Director:
Writers:
Release Date:
16 February 1956 (USA)
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Tagline:
Electrically attracted to each other...Overwhelmingly engulfed by it...Guiltily in love! more
Plot:
Emotions are ignited amongst the complacent townsfolk when a handsome drifter arrives in a small Kansas community on the morning of the Labour Day picnic. full summary | full synopsis
Plot Keywords:
Picnic
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Drifter
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Kansas
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Small Town
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Beauty Queen
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Awards:
Won 2 Oscars.
Another 1 win
&
10 nominations
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NewsDesk:
(7 articles)
William Inge's Picnic Opens Triad Stage's Ninth Season, Runs September 6-27
(From BroadwayWorld.com. 19 August 2009, 5:08 AM, PDT)
Ask the Flying Monkey! (May 27, 2009)
(From AfterElton.com. 26 May 2009, 5:16 PM, PDT)
(From BroadwayWorld.com. 19 August 2009, 5:08 AM, PDT)
Ask the Flying Monkey! (May 27, 2009)
(From AfterElton.com. 26 May 2009, 5:16 PM, PDT)
User Comments:
soul-searching at its best
more (87 total)
Cast
(Complete credited cast) | William Holden | ... | Hal Carter |
 | Kim Novak | ... | Marjorie 'Madge' Owens |
 | Betty Field | ... | Flo Owens |
| Susan Strasberg | ... | Millie Owens |
 | Cliff Robertson | ... | Alan Benson |
| Arthur O'Connell | ... | Howard Bevans |
| Verna Felton | ... | Helen Potts |
| Reta Shaw | ... | Irma Kronkite |
| Nick Adams | ... | Bomber |
| Raymond Bailey | ... | Mr. Benson |
| Elizabeth Wilson | ... | Christine Schoenwalder (as Elizabeth W. Wilson) |
 | Rosalind Russell | ... | Rosemary Sidney |
Additional Details
Parents Guide:
Runtime:
115 min | USA:113 min (DVD version)
Country:
Language:
Color:
Color (Technicolor)
Aspect Ratio:
2.55 : 1 more
Sound Mix:
4-Track Stereo (RCA Sound Recording)
Certification:
UK:A (original rating) |
UK:U (re-rating) (1990) |
West Germany:12 |
France:U |
Finland:K-12 |
Sweden:15
Filming Locations:
Company:
Fun Stuff
Trivia:
Insisting on authenticity, director Joshua Logan filmed in several Kansas towns, including Hutchinson, only 75 miles from Udall, a town leveled by a tornado days after filming began. "It's gotta look like Kansas and it will if I have to kill every last one of ya!," the volatile Logan yelled at his cast. William Holden suffered a leg gash on a railroad signal light, Kim Novak was stung on the hip by a bee underneath her $500 Jean Louis gown, and Rosalind Russell was "bruised from earlobe to toenail during a wild gambol across a suspension bridge." A local 70-year-old "spinster" saw her film debut canceled when she broke both legs and several ribs during a fall down an embankment. Filming was interrupted almost daily by hailstorms and "wailing" tornado warnings. The actual picnic was on a muddy fairground at Halstead, Kansas. Cast and crew were "half-consumed" by "carnivorous" bugs. Phone calls had to be made from old-time crank telephones at Halstead's Baker Hotel.
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Goofs:
Continuity: At the picnic, as Hal takes the bottle from Howard, the neck is visible, but when the bottle is in Hal's hand, the neck is not visible.
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Quotes:
Rosemary Sidney:
[Giddily to her schoolteacher friends just prior to eloping] So long, girls! You know what you can tell the principal for me!
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Movie Connections:
Referenced in "Quantum Leap: Good Night, Dear Heart - November 9, 1957 (#2.17)" (1990)
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FAQ
A Note Regarding SpoilersWhat book was Millie reading? Is it a real book?
Is "Picnic" based on a book?
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more (87 total)
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It pains me to see people miss Picnic's message; as people hastily label it as 'outdated' or flawed in any way, they neglect the fact that what Inge, Logan, and the cast have offered us is indeed universal. Set on Labor Day weekend in Middle America, this is a film about the bittersweet irony of living in a world governed by rules and time. The characters in Picnic is confronted by a demon that, if not dealt with appropriately, serves to consume them and ensure that they become the thing they most fear. In a desperate search to find love, Rosemary (Rosalind Russell) alienates people to the extent that she seems increasingly destined to be alone. Admired throughout the town for her beauty, Madge (Kim Novak), in her unwillingness or inability to assert herself, is trapped inside her pretty face and finds she cannot build a character to support it. Her younger sister Millie (Susan Strasberg) is devoted to intellectual pursuit but finds her intellectual superiority complex serves to limit her peer group and rob her of her childhood. She is seen throughout the film sneaking cigarettes, and at one point steals a swig of whiskey, all in a rather revealing display of her conflict with regards to her place in the transition from youth to adulthood. Mrs Owens (Betty Field), having been left by her husband presumably for a younger woman, attempts to force Madge into an early marriage to a rich man so that she will not face the same anguish, but her dominating insistence on Madge's beauty as her chief asset is what eventually drives her away with little regret. This truly is the story of the varying ways people create and deal with solitude. Each character undergoes the struggle we all must to find a person beneath the masks we hide behind. It is a study of the irony of the evanescence of happiness - at this Labor Day picnic that is the great joyful gathering of the entire town, each of our main characters seeks their own escape. The emotional rawness of the end of Summer is exposed and serves as the perfect time for seasonal as well as personal transition. They are all, in effect, living parts of a sunset, as described by Russell in perhaps the most significant examination of time in the film. Holden's character is unique in that it is a true testament to the everyman and the power of chance. His arrival in this town is in fact the catalyst for reflection and action, and he shakes things up without having any inherent wisdom or inspiration (he is actually something of a moron, thus his ability to make things happen is so much more intriguing). That this is a passionate and beautifully acted (the occasional vacancy and slowness only a reinforcement of the emotional stagnancy Logan intends to have us defeat) love story with a heart-wrenchingly beautiful theme song is only icing on the cake.