Picnic

Star Review

From the opening, iconic shots of a hunky William Holden parading half-naked around the picket-fenced gardens of a repressed Midwest community, Picnic establishes itself as potentially explosive mix of boiling sexuality and strangulating, small-town social mores. Indeed, the film's introduction of Holden as Hal - a cocky but fading drifter, looking to hook up with rich college buddy Alan and become a 'respectable' 9-to-5 guy - is almost provocative in its homoeroticism. Stripped to the waist, tanned and lean, Hal shines in the sunlight like a bronze statue, upsetting the quiet restraint of the Norman Rockwell milieu with a blatant, masculine sexuality that catches both men and women off-guard.
Hal's brawny charm soon registers on the radars of the film's principal women: young tomboy Millie, shrill spinster Rosemary and, with destructive results, Millie's beauty queen sister Madge (Kim Novak). Tension comes to a head during the leisurely Labor Day picnic, a marathon event that begins with games and ends with booze-fuelled hysterics. Choreographed with visual and narrative virtuosity, the lush widescreen cinematography prettifies yet also underlines the heated passions running just beneath the story.

Julian Upton on 9th June 2006
View all 101 of Julian Upton's reviews

Film Description

Academy Award-winning drama about the impact of a handsome, virile and egotistic drifter on the lives of five women in a small Kansas town over Labour Day weekend.

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Film Details

Cast

Kim Novak, William Holden, Betty Field, Cliff Robertson, Susan Strasberg

Technical Details