Directed by Joshua Logan
Screenplay by Daniel Taradash, based on the play by William Inge
Starring William Holden, Kim Novak, Betty Field, Susan Strasberg and Rosalind Russell
The method by which I choose the films to cover in this series is pretty low-tech. I simply look up the streaming availability for films for a given set of years – lately it’s been the 40’s and 50’s – and if they’re not streaming, then I check to see if they’re on DVD/Blu-Ray at my local library. In this way, I can usually find something to write about, because – no surprise – Best Picture nominees are generally available in some way.
In some sense, the movies chosen are random, in that I pick the ones most interesting from the most readily available. But in another, given I tend to look for a bunch of years all at once, then watch those films, then move on to others, the randomness is confined to small slivers of time. So, even while it’s somewhat random what I choose, it’s also not. The point I make here? There’s no real serendipity to me managing to go back-to-back in this series with Best Picture losers starring William Holden. The first, Our Town, was from early in his career, back before cigarettes and booze did a number of his voice. This one, Picnic, came later, from his peak years of 1950-1957. I’d really love to take on one from his later years, to maybe get a Three Stages of William Holden thing going on, to see how he was as a young man, an old man, and somewhere in between. Unfortunately, he only had two late-career Best Picture Also-Rans – Network and The Towering Inferno – and since I’ve already seen them, you’re out of luck if reading my takes on them, and his career, appealed to you. But even if you don’t get a long piece on that, I will sum up what I think my assessment would have been: Continue reading →
Directed by Sam Wood
