PICNIC: Blu-ray (Columbia, 1955) Eureka! re-issue

As an ardent admirer of movies in general, but more to the point, those to have left their indelible marks on our collective consciousness, I frequently go to the movies, hoping to find some director or star from today's vintage who will rekindle my love (dare I say, worship?) of that artistry. But the more I return to the archives from Hollywood's golden age, the more I am reminded - painfully so - of the fact, the generation that gave us such iconic films and performances is, alas, truly dead and gone. Joshua Logan's Picnic (1955) is a prime example of this forgotten ghost flower; a lush and stirring super production, so resplendent and nourishing, it could only have been made at the height of the 1950’s, itself a time of upheaval and change, both in and outside of America's film-making capital. Picnic is, I think, the perfect ‘summer’ movie – shot in the muggy heat of mid-August, Logan and his cinematographer, the legendary James Wong Howe, capturing the quintessence of this sweat-soaked humanity, clustered around the ritualized fare and frivolities of a Labor Day outing, the searing white hot glare of the sun perfectly to compliment the steamy sex story at the picture's core. What has been all but forgotten today, is that sensuality on the screen is not about leaving one's knickers in a ball on the backseat or in the boudoir. In Picnic, we have a tale of unbridled eroticism, thriving, heaving, and, vibrating with all the passion Hollywood could muster under the yoke of fifties’ screen censorship. And yet, to observe co-stars, William Holden and Kim Novak, effortlessly gliding to George Duning’s melodic score, fingers barely touching, much less arms locked in embrace, is to set off a kinetic display of fireworks in two sexually-charged souls, so charmed by desire, as to painfully spark more than the flint of incendiary on-screen chemistry.  

Based on William Inges' Pulitzer prize-winning play, Picnic peels away the heavy curtain on two uniquely American taboos. The first is the topic of sex itself, then a non plus in studio-bound movies and strictly enforced by Hollywood's self-imposed code of censorship. But the second, and arguably even more revealing shocker, is the rather raw and troublesome portrait of mid-western Americana – the mythology about ‘the good people’ of the Bible belt, turned asunder by the arrival of a handsome grifter, who unsettles all their slum prudery simply by taking off his shirt. We’ll give it to Bill Holden – a real ‘man’s man’, his perfectly formed pecs, shaven and tanned, glistening with noon-day pebbles of perspiration from the exercise of chopping wood. Yet, Holden’s sway on our heroine, is not to be unearthed by even this – the sight of his taut body glistening just beyond her bedroom window. Rather, something about Holden’s penetrating stares, made almost ‘off the cuff’, and, with a sort of intuitive nonchalance, knowing full of his ability to entice the opposite sex, yet seemingly not at all much to care, one way or the other. Is he a tease, performing the proverbial ‘mind fuck’ on the deliciously supple Kim Novak? Perhaps. She, of the ‘well brought up’ ilk in virginal young ladies – a screen caricature of sorts, but for whom today no counterpart, comparable in life or at the movies, exists, repeatedly withdraws from his tractor beam of male magnetism until the penultimate moment when, left to their own devices, the couple succumb to their seemingly platonic light tempo of an innocuous summer dance in the public square. What could be more wholesome or harmless, at least, on the surface? But oh, does it so incredibly sparkle with the roiling primal urges of two cats in heat, destined to be undone and ravaged.  

Picnic takes place in Kansas. But the idealized bucolic charm and tender affinity for small town folk with big hearts, gingerly nestled in all their picturesque domesticity is subverted in this film. The town's spinster schoolmarm, Rosemary (Rosalind Russel) is a self-deprecating, sexually-frustrated cougar, trolling for fresh meat even as she bitterly clings to the only man of her years, Howard Bevans (Arthur O'Connell) who has paid her modest attention. The eligible maids of the Owens' house - Marjorie (Kim Novak) and younger sister, Millie (Susan Strasberg) are conflicted, scheming virgins, presided over by an enterprising matriarch, Flo (Betty Fields) who can think of no higher aspiration than to pimp out her eldest to Alan Benson (Cliff Robertson), the ineffectual, emotionally emasculated heir to a fortune. The Owens' aged neighbor, Helen Potts (Verna Felton) is a fragile romantic of the group, who relives her own youthful days vicariously by watching Marjorie and Millie grow up. Even our nominal hero, Hal Carter (William Holden) is on the cusp of a real human tragedy: outwardly the epitome of manliness, affectionately ogled by all the pretty young things in their splashy one-piece bathing suits, but inwardly, terrified of what the advancing years have in store for him, especially after his looks wither. These are not the contented 'simple folk' invoked in those pastoral pastiches to ma’, apple pie, and the county fair in such memorable screen outings as Home In Indiana (1944), State Fair (1945) and (more contemporary to this film), Oklahoma! (released the same year); later, to be carried into the extreme, near parody of 1958’s The Long Hot Summer. In 1955, such a forthright deconstruction of America 'the beautiful' must have appeared to teeter on the brink of counterculture to say the least. But viewed today, Picnic has more than a glint of an ominous ring and truthfulness about it, a sort of Hollywood debunking of its own celluloid myths.

We first see Hal startled to life by a train conductor in the back of a dusty, empty railway car. He's filthy, shoeless and obviously without a penny to his name. As the title credits role, Hal disrobes to bathe near a man-made falls. It is rather telling that our first titillating glimpse of Bill Holden's natural muscularity is pitted against the decaying outskirts of a dry and roasting rural landscape. Like the place, the man too is entrenched in a state of decline. This is Hal Carter's last stand. He will have to muster every bit of charisma to reinvent himself for this group of strangers, all too willing to accept him at face value. From here, Daniel Taradash’s screenplay moves into establishing the differences between Hal and the town's most eligible bachelor, Alan Benson. The two former college buddies reunite on Alan's front lawn as he is practicing his golf swing. At a glance, there is seemingly nothing wrong with Alan. He is rich and handsome - the attributes to define the ideal all-American suitor, and one that any mother would wish for their daughters. But wait. There is something unsettling beneath Alan's clean-shaven, boyish looks. The yoke of the town’s faux propriety has stifled his inner desire; confused it, made even slightly insecure with the opposite sex perhaps, and, left unabated, or especially when pitted against Hal’s more robust ‘all guy’, exposes a ‘dangerous’ and embittered slant toward homoerotic desire. Certainly, Alan's chance reunion with Hal suggests as much. As they dish about their dear old alma mater, Alan leaps onto Hal for a piggy-back ride - the two cautiously observed by Alan's father (Raymond Bailey). Hal is the son for which Mr. Benson would likely have wished; rugged, outgoing and viral. By comparison, Alan's struggles to become that man heighten his inner unease. Indeed, next to Hal, he pales like the memory of their boyhood school days.

To please his father, Alan has pursued an awkward relationship with Marjorie Owens - the town's most wholesome and obvious beauty. Flo Owens has coaxed their romance from the wings, reminding Marjorie that her looks will not last forever. This superficial approach to marriage is compounded by Flo's own desperation to live well by pimping out her eldest to a ‘good home’. Alan's family wealth is expected to bolster not only his new bride but also see to Flo’s comforts. Yet, Marjorie remains unconvinced about this trade of sex for monetary conveniences. She is, in fact, the one true innocent here, a dewy-eyed dreamer, but one who secretly throbs for the full-bodied furor of intense sexual passion as opposed to that congenial, even ‘respectful’ repartee she relents to whenever she and Alan are alone together. Alan invites Hal to the Labor Day picnic, an occasion for celebration that will unfortunately unravel everyone's respectability in a very public way. Alone with his old school buddy, Alan cribs from Hal's expertise with the women, hoping some of his animal magnetism will rub off. But at the town's watering hole all eyes are on Hal, who revels at showing off his physique with a perfect jackknife dive. To be closer to Marjorie, Hal has ingratiated himself to her younger sister, Millie. This sparks a pubescent fantasy in Millie's mind. For once, she - not Marjorie - will have the most amiable heartthrob on her arm.

At the picnic, Hal is also introduced to middle-age school teacher, Rosemary and her mildly alcoholic, though nonetheless good-natured beaux, Howard. Rosemary is taken with Hal, an infatuation that stirs deeply dishonorable intentions from within. These quickly transgress into an un-containable jealousy. As Mille, Hal, Rosemary and Howard watch from the banks of the river, the town christens Marjorie their queen. In her stately robe, coddling a bouquet of red roses, she sparks Hal's libidinous desire - the first genuine intention he has exhibited all day. This revelation sickens Millie (that, and the whiskey Hal and Howard have been plying she and Rosemary), but it also sends Rosemary into a fitful obsession to possess Hal. In a disgusting display, Rosemary claws at Hal, tearing his shirt to covet his body she will otherwise never possess. Now, Hal is accused of getting Millie (who is underage) drunk, and furthermore charged with attempting to seduce his friend's fiancée. Given Hal's grifter status, his feeble attempts to finagle a place in Alan's family business, and furthermore, the undeniable mutual reciprocation of his own lust for Marjorie mirrored in her eyes, Alan is seduced to follow Rosemary's spiral into envy. Alan uses his family's clout to call out the local authorities for Hal's arrest after he and Marjorie flee the scene in Alan's automobile. Hal confronts his demons in Marjorie's presence, hoping that by exposing his failed lifestyle he will dissuade her from throwing away her future with Alan on him. Instead, she tenderly kisses Hal while laying plans for their future together. She and Hal will elope to Tulsa where Marjorie is convinced Hal will find work as a bellhop in a hotel. Later that evening, Hal makes his way to Howard's apartment and begs him for a place to spend the night. Sympathetic, Howard agrees. Faced with a distraught and somewhat repentant Rosemary, Howard very reluctantly agrees to marry her. Hal and Marjorie are confronted by Flo behind the Owens' shed. Flo threatens to call the police on Hal, but Mrs. Potts tenderly encourages the couple to play their hunch and see where it leads them. Resentfully, Millie confronts Marjorie in their bedroom, telling her to do something "bright" for once in her stupid life by following Hal. Against her mother's tearful objections, Marjorie recognizes the futility in pursuing any relationship with Alan, packs her small suitcase and boards the bus for Tulsa.

In every sense, Picnic is a masterwork, its frank and often startling critique of sex vs. love and sexuality set against sensuality making for some heady times. Yet, the film is even more stark and unvarnished in its assessment of male/female sexual attraction - perceived (perhaps rightfully so) as a mere speck in the natural life cycle of man and woman, but exposed for all its incongruous toxicity. As such, Picnic takes a very adult view of its very adult subject matter - namely sex. While poems, songs and movies from varying vintages speak about mating as though it were an act procured from the purest morality and highest romantic ideals, Picnic is perhaps the first American movie to so completely suggest the rawness, heat and undiluted immediacy of eroticism as a plague on the heart and mind of its protagonists. Men desiring women, women crazed with men, and a whiff of homoerotic titillation besides, Picnic lays bare the oft cordial dictates of societal conventions, perceived as impediments to stave off our base animal drive to brutally dominate and possess another, both body and soul. Desire – usually perceived in such movies as the enemy of our ‘better angels’, herein gets trumpeted as the only genuine barometer by which men and women may rate their (sin)cerity of their compatibility. Leaving altruism aside, and, not even to ensure the longevity of the species, much less, any relationship built upon the volatile embers of desire itself, Picnic infers moral caution as the detrimental ingredient to life, the wild ride into those inner regions of our most delirious bedroom fantasies, much preferred.    

Picnic was released to Blu-ray via Twilight Time in 2012, and more recently, has reemerged via Eureka! in the U.K. While the TT disc is out of print and fetching big bucks on the internet, the Eureka! offering can still be had for a modest price, albeit, in a ‘region B’ locked disc that offers image quality virtually identical to the TT disc. One would sincerely encourage Sony – the custodians of the old Columbia catalog – to get busy re-issuing this title in hi-def state’s side, and, possibly, even to make it a part of another 4K box set of ‘Columbia Classics’ in the near future.  For now, the results on both TT and Eureka! Blu-rays is sumptuous and gratifying to say the least. Here is a true 1080p hi-def transfer to dazzle the eye and ear equally. There is so much startling clarity in James Wong Howe's breathtaking Cinemascope cinematography it is easy to forget the film is pushing 65-yrs. The widescreen image positively glows with rich colors, superbly rendered contrast levels, accurate flesh tones and a modicum of exquisite grain. Age-related artifacts are absent, as are digital anomalies like edge enhancement. This is a reference quality effort. Aside: the TT disc appears to have some difficulty booting up on certain players, with garbled menus. The audio here is as impressive. We get three lossless options on the TT release (two on the Eureka!). On the TT, a remastered 5.1 DTS, original 2.0, and, a very welcomed isolated music track that extols the virtues of George Duning's sinfully luscious dramatic score. The Eureka! dumps the isolated score. Extras on the TT are limited to a theatrical trailer. On the Eureka! we get a vintage, Kim Novak’s Hollywood Picnic, produced for the DVD release from 2001 and featuring an archival interview with Novak conducted by screenwriter/journalist, Stephen Rebello. The Eureka! also features a theatrical trailer, plus a more amply endowed collector’s booklet, with an essay by Travis Crawford. The TT disc has liner notes by Julie Kirgo.  Bottom line: whatever edition you prefer, Picnic is required viewing during these lazy summer days.  Break out the lemonade and sandwiches. It’s time to go picnicking.

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

4

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

2