Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Synopsis:

Natalie Wood (Love with the Proper Stranger) plays a teenager in the Midwest who tries to put her life back together after a disastrous but intense relationship with an upper class classmate (Warren Beatty, Bonnie and Clyde) during the 1920s.

Reaction & Thoughts:

“Though nothing can bring back the hour
of splendour in the grass,
of glory in the flower,
We will grieve not, rather find”

William Wordsworth

Sensitively directed by Elia Kazan (A Streetcar Named Desire and East of Eden) and sharply written by playwright William Inge, Splendor in the Grass is a poignant, heartbreaking coming-of-age story about the pains, hopes, and disillusions of growing up. Although the story takes place in the 1920s and the film was made in the 1960s, the issues presented here have universal and timeless appeal.

Splendor in the Grass is an absorbing, touching and surprisingly mature look at young love. Few films — many movies have tried, and most of them have failed — have captured the elation, frustrations, and disappointments of falling in love for the first time as powerful and penetrating as this bittersweet film.

The film was playwright Inge’s last triumph as a writer. Inge initially achieved prominence with his famous Broadway play Come Back, Little Sheba, and later won the Pulitzer Prize for his 1953 stage hit Picnic. All of his stories deal with the deeply felt passions of frustrated people in small American towns. Inge wrote Splendor in the Grass specifically for the big screen, and won the Best Screenplay Oscar for it.

Splendor in the Grass also provided Natalie Wood with one of her finest film roles. As the sensitive teenager who has to make some important decisions about morality and passion, Wood gives the performance of a lifetime. Her transformation in the film from a naïve young woman to a wise and assertive adult is vividly portrayed. She deservedly received an Oscar nomination for her extraordinarily good work.

Warren Beatty makes an auspicious film debut as a young man having a hard time controlling his hormones. It’s an intelligent performance from a newcomer. Along with Beatty, funny lady Phyllis Diller, character actor Eugene Roche (Foul Play), and Oscar-winning actress Sandy Dennis (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?), they all made their movie debuts here. The cast also includes Pat Hingle (Norma Rae), Barbara Loden (Wild River), and Gary Lockwood (2001: A Space Odyssey).

In addition, Splendor in the Grass looks and sounds terrific. Boris Kaufman’s (12 Angry Men and Long Day’s Journey Into Night) camera beautifully captures the actors and the surroundings to their best advantage. David Amram’s (The Young Savages and The Manchurian Candidate) simple yet effective music score gets injected throughout the film in a very subtle way. Amram’s score helps emphasize the romantic angle of the story, and his compositions are well-integrated into the mix.

Conclusions & Final Thoughts:

Although Splendor in the Grass is not as popular as many other films from the 1960s, it is one of the best coming-of-age films ever made, and remains a welcome addition to your collection. This is an absolute must for all classic movie lovers and romantics at heart. Highly recommended! Remade as a 1981 TV movie, with Melissa Gilbert and Cyril O’Reilly as the troubled lovers. Color, 124 minutes, Not Rated.