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Based on William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play of the same name, 1955 theatrical Picnic is a must see option this time of the year.
Set in a small town in Kansas on Labor Day, William Holden as drifter Hal Carter hops off a freight train in a sleepy town in Kansas to visit his well-to-do fraternity friend from college, Alan Benson (Cliff Robertson). Holden’s Hal is unemployed and in search of some direction, and hopes that Alan, the son of the prosperous owner of a large grain mill (Raymond Bailey pre-The Beverly Hillbillies), will give him some sort of job.
“I gotta get somewhere in this world. I just gotta,” notes Holden’s Hal, who at age 37 at the time the film was released was concerned he was too old to be romancing Kim Novak, then 22, as the 19 year-old town beauty Madge Owen, who is already involved with Alan.
“But I don’t love Alan,” whines Novak’s Madge when her nagging mother Flo (Betty Field) pressures Madge into marrying him.
When Hal finds work to do for the sweet next door neighbor Helen Potts (Verna Felton) in exchange for a meal, we meet Madge’s brainy, albeit socially awkward, younger sister Millie (Susan Strasberg) and scene stealer Rosalind Russell as their spinster school teacher boarder Rosemary Sydney. Miss Sydney is anxious for her seemingly perennial bachelor friend Howard Bevins (Arthur O’Connell) to marry her. And Madge and Millie, no doubt, harbor their own feelings of inadequacy.
“Poor Millie! That’s all I hear is poor Millie. Poor Millie won herself a scholarship for four whole years of college,” complains Madge to her mother.
“A girl like Millie can find confidence in other ways,” responds Flo. “You were the first born. Your father felt like the sun rose and set in you. He used to carry you on his shoulder for the neighborhood to see. But when Millie came things were different. Your father wasn’t home much of the time. He found other things.”
At the town’s annual Labor Day picnic, Hal, who attends as Millie’s date, draws his attention to Madge. As the pair dance together listening to “Moonglow” (which, for William Holden, was also a concern because of his minimal dancing skills), the sexual tension had already been building in the scenes preceding the dance explodes during the first moments when Madge hijacks sister Millie’s (more innocent) dance with Hal.
Novak’s Madge is tired of being valued for her looks and is a shoo-in to win the town’s annual “Queen of Neewollah” beauty pageant. Holden’s Hal is hungry for some direction, if indeed there is any. And, when Rosalind Russell’s Rosemarie gets drunk while admiring Hal, she thrusts aside her reliable date, O’Connell’s Howard, and losing control, rips Hal’s shirt right off his back in a seizure of lust.
Ultimately, Hal is forced into a fight with Cliff Robertson’s Alan and runs from the law, dragging Madge with him. He persuades her to return home, confessing that he’s nothing but a bum and a liar. Madge does go home, and Hal exits the way he arrived, by hopping a freight train. Madge, however, realizes that her love for Hal is stronger than the security of home and she takes a bus heading in the same direction as the train, intending to catch up with the love of her life.
“Go with him, Madge. For once in your life do something bright,” Strasberg’s Millie tells her older sister Madge at the end of the film, just as Rosemarie and a befuddled Howard leave for their honeymoon.
In the final scene, the train takes off with Madge on it as Millie runs waving goodbye.
Picnic was nominated for six Academy Awards, with two wins: Best Film Editing and Best Art Direction – Color. It also won the Golden Globe for Best Director – Motion Picture, among other accolades. And it remains the go to film to discover or revisit, particularly on Labor Day.
