Picnic

Kim Novak and William Holden dance to "Moonglow." He's a nobody passing through town, and she's supposed to marry his old college pal, but you know that ain't gonna happen. 'Cause she knows how to clap...



When I was a little girl, once in a rare while my mother and father would dress up and go out. At my eye level, my mother was all high heels, nylons, and skirt edge; and when she moved, the scent of Joy perfume. My father was polished shoes and the tip of a tie.

I thought such creatures were what children metamorphed into when they grew up, but long before I got there, those creatures had become extinct. Perhaps it's just as well they only exist on film now--Picnic (a film you wish would break out into camp but never stops insisting it's serious) shows the terrible strictures necessary to maintain such life forms.
I'd have been like Little Sister (played by Susan Strasberg, Lee's daughter), desperate to escape to Greenwich Village.
But weren't they beautiful? You can almost catch their scent on the warm night air. Peach, and damp cotton, and musk.

As with cigarettes, we may not miss the strictures, but they sure could look good on film. Maybe my favorite moment: when he puts her hand over his beating heart, toward the end, and she moves her other hand on his shoulder, as if to stroke his ear.