Customer Reviews

Splendor in the Grass, The Play

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The poem y'all are looking for is "Ode on Intimations of Immortality" by William Wordsworth.

I loved the book it pulled me in till the very last page there was such a meaning to it and it was so wonderfully written I enjoyed it so much that I went and got the movie and it was equilly great. I would reccomend the book to any one

Although his work was widely celebrated as brilliant portraits of the 'Average American,' William Inge (1913-1973) was deliberately engmatic, a homosexual man who lived in an era of sexual repression and who played out the consequence of sexual repression through the heterosexual characters he created for the stage in such plays as COME BACK LITTLE SHEBA, PICNIC, BUS STOP, and THE DARK AT THE TOP OF THE STAIRS, all of which focused on "Average Americans" and found them lonely, uncertain, and sexually strangled. One of his most overt statements, however, was not created for the stage but for the screen: the 1961 SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS, which Inge wrote directly for the screen on the recommendation of director Elia Kazan. In an era that favored bedroom farces in comedy and cautious innuendo in drama, the movie was a shocker indeed, condemned by one moral group after another for its portrait of sexuality among 1920s teens caught between double sexual double standards that were still commonplace when the film was released.

In the wake of the film's great critical and box office success, Inge allowed the film to be adapted to the stage by F. Andrew Leslie, an author known for similar stage adaptations of such films as THE BACHELOR AND THE BOBBY SOXER and LILLIES OF THE FIELD. Not surprisingly, the resulting playscript stays very close to the characters and story that Inge created for the film, which follows the semi-tragic arc of two small-town teenage lovers in the 1920s. Bud is a rich kid, the son of an industrialist whose stocks are part of the 1920s roar; Deenie is a pretty girl from an ordinary home. Both are passionate about each other and hungry for sex, but both are railroaded by ways in which society and their parents force them into the mores of the day.

Much of the focus is on Deenie, a pretty girl from an average home who has been taught by her mother that sexual arousal is not a thing nice girls experience--and when Deenie is aroused by boyfriend Bud she is emotionally ripped apart by what she perceives as the division between "good girls" that men marry and "bad girls" that men play with. Bud, likewise under parental influence, drops Deenie in favor of a good time girl, but he also feels the hypocrisy involved, particularly when his own sister is distinctly wild and especially when he sees Deenie self-destruct into insanity when he abandons her. Ultimately there can be no happy ending, only recovery, deeper understanding, and a letting go of a relationship that was not ultimately possibly for either partner.

Leslie does not so much adapt Inge's story, characters, and dialogue as he recreates them for the stage, indicating how they are to be played out. He also eliminates scenes that were purely cinematic and replaces them whatever dialogue is necessary to fill the gap: such memorable moments from the film as Deenie adrift in the river cannot, of course, be played out on the stage. The end result is technically the same characters with the same story but it somehow lacks the power of the film and is distinctly lacking Inge's truly stinging background statement on social hypocrisy. Not a bad script, and no doubt one that can indeed be staged in a memorable way. But I cannot imagine that any staging of it would equal, much less surpass, the grand power of the original film.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

I liked the movie very much. I want to read the poem from the movie!

I read this book in high school - now, my daughter is in high school and I want her to read it. It is a book that stays with you forever. It has stayed with me for over 30 years.

I do not know if this is the book I am looking for! I saw the movie Splendor In The Grass with Natalie Wood & Warren Beatty and I loved the poem. I always wanted to get the poem from that movie. It is such a moving piece. To get the poem I would either like to purchase the book or purchase the writer's works. I don't know which is better. Maybe he wrote even better poems that I would like. So maybe I should just get the author's works.After I get established or read the books then I will send a review. Thank you. Julia Reid

i am a spanisch woman (canary island) an how can i get this book hear. thankyou