Customer Reviews

Splendor in the Grass

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In the same way he was able to extract a searing performance from Andy Griffith in 1957's A Face in the Crowd, master director Elia Kazan gets similarly stellar results from Natalie Wood in this classic 1961 melodrama about youthful sexual repression in rural 1920's Kansas. In the same year as her Maria in West Side Story, she has never been more affecting then she is here as Deanie Loomis, the local butcher's daughter deeply in love with Bud Stamper, the son of an oil scion and the high school football hero. They are the senior sweethearts everyone expects to marry, but both have to battle constantly with their sexual longing and their grasping parents.

The ruling moral code restricts Deanie more than Bud who ends up cavorting with a good-time girl named Juanita. The indiscretion overwhelms Deanie who attempts suicide and ends up in a sanitarium for her fragile mental state. A few years later with their lives on divergent paths, they meet again to come to terms with each other. While the whole film is beautifully executed thanks to Kazan's sure hand and William Inge's screenplay (his first directly for the screen), it's the last fifteen minutes that really resonate with the characters expressing their emotions with a minimum of dialogue. Otherwise, there are plenty of heated moments of melodrama along with soap opera elements familiar to anyone who has seen 1955's Picnic based on Inge's successful Broadway play.

At her most beautiful, Wood is wondrous as she moves fluidly from innocently infatuated to obsessive to resigned. As the none-too-bright Bud, Warren Beatty is charismatic in his film debut and makes Deanie's powerful fixation completely understandable. There are several standout performances among the supporting cast with Audrey Christie pitch-perfect as Deanie's unsympathetic mother, Pat Hingle in blowhard mode as Bud's power-hungry father, and Zohra Lampert as Angie, the self-effacing waitress Bud meets at Yale. The classic Wordsworth poem from which the film's title is derived makes a fitting coda for this movie, and I still feel the intractable sense of longing in the two lead characters every time I see this movie. The 2009 DVD offers the original theatrical trailer and a familiar 1961 Roadrunner cartoon short, "Beep Prepared".

I know, I know, this is supposed to be about sexual repression and rigid, frigid controlling parents, blah, blah, blah, but, please! What it really comes down to is a shallow guy more interested in cheap, easy sex than in being faithful to the wondrous girl worth waiting for. Deanie Loomis is a finer person than shallow Bud will ever be. When she crashes and burns he leaves for college and bails forever. Yuck! It's tragic that roles like this (and Rebel Without a Cause) are not what Natalie Wood is most known for. In Splendor she "acts" with every expression of her face and every movement of her body. She is undoubtedly one of the most luminous, most sensitive actresses to have ever appeared on film.

It seems parts of the scene from Bud's life with Angelina are edited out of the movie during the last 10 minutes of the DVD. The story is very good and worth watching.

This movie is truly rich with content and meaning, though it seems to be about two fairly ordinary young people. The story focuses on two love struck high school seniors who both have abusive, exploitative parents, which has made them desperate to find a sense of belonging together. They seem to be meant for each other, but as we soon discover, they are really not similar people. Deanie, the young lady, is a vulnerable and sensitive soul, a superior being to Bud. Bud is simple, selfish and finally even cruel to Deanie. When they are finally separated, and Deanie gets away from her domineering mother, she starts to realize who she is. She begins to see that there are different answers for her in life than what she thought. This movie is a masterpiece as far as acting, directing and script are concerned. Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty seem to completely inhabit their roles -- their performances are superb. This is a movie with much to say about life, families and how our values are shaped. It will have you thinking for days afterwards.

If this film went any other way, it wouldn't have been the great film that it is. but what you have is a good wholesome film dealing with the desires and longings of one couple. Deenie(Natalie Wood) and Bud Stampler(Warren Beatty in his debut) are a couple about to finish high school; She wants nothing more than to be with Bud and vice versa. But at the same time, the mores of the day at the time truly confuse them. For one, it is the Roaring 20s but Deenie's mother(Audrey Christie)is of the thought that sex is for reproduction only and a woman has NO sexual desires or longings. Bud on the other hand, wants to please his father(Pat Hingle), the richest man in town, who is so disappointed with his daughter who just want to drink and sleep with other men. Already she has had an abortion and an annullment and she's not happy either so she drinks and sleeps her way out of her troubles and Bud is obligated to fullfill the family's hopes on him by going to Yale and then getting married to Deenie, as his father wants. But all Bud wants to go to the State University there, marry Deenie and ranch on his father's land. When he goes to his father to get an inkling on what he feels, he advises to save Deenie for marriage and get with a fast girl for his sexual pleasure. When he tries to speak to the family doctor after having an illness about his feelings, the doctor gets uncomfortable and isn't any help. So as a son can do, he goes to the fast girl to sow his wild oats and breaks up with Deenie. Deenie, knowing the deal, has a mental breakdown when she decides to give of herself to Bud and he turns her down. She ends up in an institution. Bud ends up in Yale for a minute and flunks. The father tries to intervene but the stock market overrides him and Bud goes home to ranch like he wanted to; Deenie gets better, and goes home to see Bud once again. Since they have both grown apart and have new lives, they make peace and move on.
Splendor in the Grass is interesting because you have these two young people who are caught between what they want, and what society feels is best and it causes them both a lot of pain. I wonder know if these two were in modern times how would they proceed? a whole new ballgame.

Indeed this is one of Mr. Kazan's masterful works, a beautiful love story in the hands of a master director and his splendid collaborators--Wood, Beatty and the writer Inge. The handsome Beatty
made his debut certainly with a bang, the rest was movie history;
Ms. Wood was equally terrific in her pathetic role (I just wonder why the Academy did not give her an Oscar for that). The other supporting actors did their jobs wonderfully as well. See this film--
and maybe you would ponder on the nature of young love...

Splendor in the Grass starring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty is a haunting and beautiful film about sexual repression in 1920's Kansas. Wood gives a chilling performance, she was nominated for an Oscar and rightfully so. This movie just pulls at my heartstrings when it comes to first love and disappointment. This is a must-see coming-of-age tale of girl loves boy, girl loses boy, and finally overcomes her depression. Enjoy!

I bought this for my moms and she likes it. I never seen it. She likes old movies so I got her this.

Love pushes high school sweethearts to the brink in Elia Kazan's powerful 1961 classic.Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty,the most popular students in their school,are so passionately in love that it drives both of them to physical and mental disaster.It may sound like pure soap opera,but under Elia Kazan's brilliant guidance William Inge's literate,well-constructed and beautifully written script emerges as one of the best coming-of-age films ever made.Kazan is well backed by strong work from his colleagues.Paul Sylbert's sets,Anna Hill Johnstone's period costumes,Boris Kaufman's photography,and David Amram's score
are especially outstanding.And Kazan gets marvelous performances from his entire cast.Natalie Wood does some of her best work here,certainly equal to her brilliant performance in "West Side Story" that same year(Remarkable how she was so perfectly cast-
and so wonderful-in the three best films ever made about teenagers).Warren Beatty makes a duperb film debut here.They are beautifully supported by such fine actors as Audrey Christie and Sandy Dennis.One of the best films of the 60s.It has not lost its power.Rebel Without a Cause (Two-Disc Special Edition)West Side Story (Special Edition Collector's Set)East of Eden (Two-Disc Special Edition)Romeo and JulietWilliam Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet

Natalie Wood is a fresh, young and attractive actress who is reasonably effective in the lead role, but the film left me dissatisfied on several counts. First, it does not convey anything of the mentality of the American mid-west in the 1920s, when it is set. You can buy the wardrobe and the old cars; that's not enough. This film was made in the 1960s and reeks of the 60s. Secondly, the story is paper thin: girl and boy, in love at school, cannot sexually consummate the relationship because of family and social mores; girl goes off her head and boy marries someone else. It is neither splendid nor green -- but worn and arid. The story meanders through its telling; a key character -- Bud's sister -- brings it to life briefly, then she suddenly disappears out of the plot, as aimlessly as she entered. Elia Kazan has made some great films, with well-focused ideas. Not this one.