Picnic (1955)

(On Cable TV, July 2021) William Holden plays a slightly off-brand version of his persona in Picnic, as a hobo who walks into a small Midwestern town to ask for a job from an old college friend… but sees everything turn sour when his friend’s paramour falls for him instead. Much of the film’s atmosphere depends on how credibly it can portray a small Kansas town in the waning summertime, and Picnic actually does well there — much of the film’s middle act revolves around happenings at a Labour Day country fair and there’s a strong sense of atmosphere throughout the film as it plays out the “stranger comes to town” narrative. Holden is too old to play a twentysomething drifter with a strong attachment to a college friend, but his shirtless scenes bring all the girls to the yard (but especially Kim Novak, in an early role) and his star quality sustains much of the film. I did like Susan Strasberg, but it’s not clear if I like the actress or the tomboyish nerd she plays. On the other hand, I definitely dislike the shrewish character played by Rosalind Russell but the actress is magnificent here and never more so as when her characters deliver a merciless verbal bombardment to the protagonist. Picnic is a small-scale kind of drama, a bit overwrought by today’s standards but still interesting to watch in its own way. The final aerial shot is evocative (and novel enough for the time), but much of the film can be used as an exemplar for the way Midwestern America thought of itself in the mid-1950s, creating an artificial utopia belied by the unfulfilled desires of its characters.