Having a day off from work and it was raining. So I turned on the telly to find this film. Never seen or heard of it. Oh how I wish it had stayed that way. Two hours I'll never get back again.
Dross. No story, bad, bad acting. Thank God acting has moved on from this.
William Holden was such a bad actor, how on earth did he make a living. And Kim Novak, for the love of God.
Terrible, Terrible, Terrible.
"I am Stewie Griffin. What the deuce?"
Says someone named "catpeee"
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"If you ever work in an office, look out for the fat cows."
LOL - best response I've ever read.
I love this movie. Loved Mrs. Potts. Her line "why you LOOK like a college man." And Hal's very grateful response "why, thank you ma'am."
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"You want that gun, pick it up. I wish you would."
It's melodrama. It was very fashionable for movies to be done in this style before Brando, De Niro and the Method came along. The idea was for the film to be very stagey. Films were not shot the same way back them either. In older films, usually love scenes are done with the lovers in profile. In modern films, love scenes are done with one actor in close up and the other actor blurred in the background. The old method was certainly modelled on the stage method, because that's precisely how someone would view actors in a play and it was also because cameras, particularly technicolor were massive and ungainly. Older cameras often didn't capture the same intricate details in people's faces. It's harder to see wrinkles on people's faces or details on people's costumes. Such films, hampered by such technology necessarily use over the top acting and gestures
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[deleted]
Wow! I have never heard it explained in such a clear manner that someone who knows nothing of these things could understand. Thank you.
sharewhat....ever, catpeeeeeee
Enrique Sanchez
So, what unseen force was it that prevented you from changing the channel or turning it off?
shareLuckily for catpee, there is a wealth of alternate viewing possibilities. Comic books. Toys. Hookin' up with hotties. Drunken frat boys lugging around a baby. Vampires, wizards, spiderman! LOL, some good, some bad - they don't make movies like Picnic any more, too much talking!
shareand no thing gettin' blowed up real good!
shareWell, I'm taking a chance and bumping this thread. I just saw this for the first time on TCM last night (3/6/13) because Robert Osborne called it Kim Novak's first important film--but I agree with catpeee, which for one of the few times puts me out of the IMDB mainstream. With the exceptions of Rosalind Russell and the guy that played her boyfriend, I thought the acting was abysmal. (Well, Reta Shaw was fine in a two minute role.) Holden was ridiculous and Kim Novak is just not an actor, average to bad in everything I've seen her in (closer to bad in this pic). No ability to show emotion, no conviction. Her sister and mother were both textbook over the top melodrama. Holden's arrival was supposed to be the big shakeup moment for this sleepy town, but in the end no one seemed to really care. The stars of this movie were out-acted by the two babies that started crying on cue near the beginning of the picnic scene.
The closing aerial scene was spectacular, though.