Classic Film Guide

Picnic (1955)

Great holiday film (Labor Day) about a drifter, played by William Holden, and his effect on a small town which includes Kim Novak, Betty Field, Rosalind Russell and Arthur O'Connell (who received his first of his two unrewarded Academy Award nominations for Best Supporting Actor), Susan Strasberg, and Cliff Robertson. Based on the Pulitzer Prize winning play by William Inge, with a screenplay from Daniel Taradash (From Here to Eternity (1953)), it was nominated for a Best Picture Oscar (as was its director, Joshua Logan, his first of three unrewarded), and won for Editing and Color Art Direction-Set Decoration. George Duning's Score was also nominated. Holden comes to see his old pal Robertson, attracting Novak, befriending her kid sister Strasberg, upsetting their mother Field, and affecting staid businessman O'Connell's relationship with sassy teacher Russell, among others. Film critic Roger Ebert is full of malarkey about (per his review of) this film! #59 on AFI's 100 Greatest Love Stories list.

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