Trailer
Plot summary
Hal Carter rides a freight train into a small Kansas town on Labor Day to look up Alan Benson, his fraternity brother from college and the son of the wealthiest man in town. Hal got as far as his third year at college before poor grades ended it, and he has drifted since; now he hopes Alan will give him steady work. Next door he meets Madge Owens, the town beauty, whose mother Flo wants her to marry Alan. Madge wants to be seen as more than a pretty face and is unsure that she loves Alan, while Alan's father thinks she is not good enough for his son. Hal joins the family and their boarder, schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney, and Howard Bevans, at the annual Labor Day picnic.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Picnic (1955)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- During filming of the picnic scenes in Halstead, Kansas, a tornado forced the cast and crew to take cover; it spared the set but destroyed the city of Udall, and the crew drove their trucks and equipment there to help clean up the damage.
- In 1957 marketing researcher James Vicary claimed subliminal messages such as 'eat popcorn' and 'drink Coca-Cola' in screenings of Picnic had lifted sales 18.1% and 57.8%, but unable to replicate the results he later admitted he had falsified the data.
- Holden, 37 at the time, considered himself too old for the lead role of Hal Carter and declined, complaining 'I'm too damned old and too conservative to do a striptease'; his agent talked him round and he settled for $30,000 instead of $250,000.
- By one account Cohn pushed for Kim Novak, who was under contract to Columbia, to play Madge, reportedly telling Logan 'Take her, or I'll get a new director'; Logan disputed that, saying Cohn merely suggested her and did not insist.
- Paul Newman was under contract to Warner Bros. and could not reprise his role as Alan, so Logan cast Cliff Robertson, who had toured in Mister Roberts and appeared in a revival of Logan's The Wisteria Trees.
- Eileen Heckart had played schoolteacher Rosemary Sydney during the first Broadway run, but Harry Cohn wanted a bigger name for the film, so Rosalind Russell was cast.
