You get the feeling that with a different leading man and leading lady that this movie could have been great, but as it is, it just winds up being good entertainment.
William Holden is at least ten years too old for the part of a young man floating through life (he was 36 at the time). His attempts at playing an exuberant college jock turned drifter fall flat. The lines he speaks just don't fit the image of William Holden - this movie came out five years after he played the worldly cynic, Joe Gillis, in "Sunset Boulevard."
And Kim Novak's character isn't very appealing. Her main angst in life is that she's pretty and that's all people care about. But she doesn't transform herself during the course of the movie, which is what one would expect. She's just as vacuous at the end when she tells Hal Carter (Holden) that she'll run off with him when the time comes.
The more interesting of the two sisters, and the sexier and more appealing at least to my eye, was Susan Strasberg.
Other great characters in the movie were Rosalind Russell as an over-the-top old maid with the hots for William Holden. Her scene with Arthur O'Connell (Jimmy Stewart's drinking buddy in "Anatomy of a Murder") where she breaks down and begs him to marry her was among the best in the movie. Verna Felton plays the kindly older woman everyone wishes they had for a neighbor.
There are some nostalgic shots of Fifties Americana at the picnic which centers the story, but the main characters just never grabbed me the way the author, William Inge, intended. Holden and Novak are both miscast as young lovers and their acting is awkward at times, particularly Novak's at the beginning of the film. There seems to be a disconnect between the lines spoken and the acting. Cliff Robertson adds nothing to the role of the rich kid in this love triangle either.
Entertaining, but that's about all.
William Holden is at least ten years too old for the part of a young man floating through life (he was 36 at the time). His attempts at playing an exuberant college jock turned drifter fall flat. The lines he speaks just don't fit the image of William Holden - this movie came out five years after he played the worldly cynic, Joe Gillis, in "Sunset Boulevard."
And Kim Novak's character isn't very appealing. Her main angst in life is that she's pretty and that's all people care about. But she doesn't transform herself during the course of the movie, which is what one would expect. She's just as vacuous at the end when she tells Hal Carter (Holden) that she'll run off with him when the time comes.
The more interesting of the two sisters, and the sexier and more appealing at least to my eye, was Susan Strasberg.
Other great characters in the movie were Rosalind Russell as an over-the-top old maid with the hots for William Holden. Her scene with Arthur O'Connell (Jimmy Stewart's drinking buddy in "Anatomy of a Murder") where she breaks down and begs him to marry her was among the best in the movie. Verna Felton plays the kindly older woman everyone wishes they had for a neighbor.
There are some nostalgic shots of Fifties Americana at the picnic which centers the story, but the main characters just never grabbed me the way the author, William Inge, intended. Holden and Novak are both miscast as young lovers and their acting is awkward at times, particularly Novak's at the beginning of the film. There seems to be a disconnect between the lines spoken and the acting. Cliff Robertson adds nothing to the role of the rich kid in this love triangle either.
Entertaining, but that's about all.