Splendor in the Grass (1961) on Netflix
In 1928 Kansas, Deanie Loomis and Bud Stamper are in love, but their parents warn them against going further. Bud's oil-baron father has plans for Yale, and Deanie's mother wants respectability.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.7/1023,152 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes74%
Trailer
Plot summary
It is 1928 in oil-rich southeast Kansas, where Deanie Loomis and Bud Stamper, two high school seniors, are in love. They have gone no further than kissing, and the adults around them want it to stay that way: Deanie's mother warns that Bud will not marry a girl with a loose reputation, while Bud's father, the local oil baron, fears anything that would ruin his son's future at Yale. Deanie would do anything to hold on to Bud, who has urges of his own. His sister Ginny has come back from Chicago after an annulment, to her parents' disappointment and shame.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Kansas was built around New York City: scenes of Kansas and the Loomis home were shot in the Travis section of Staten Island, the high school exteriors at Horace Mann School in the Bronx, and the gothic buildings of City College of New York stood in for Yale.
- Warren Beatty, who had already worked on television, made his screen debut in this film. He had met Inge the year before while appearing in Inge's play A Loss of Roses on Broadway.
- The story is based on people whom screenwriter William Inge knew while growing up in Kansas in the 1920s. He told it to director Elia Kazan in 1957 while they were working on a production of Inge's play The Dark at the Top of the Stairs, and they agreed it would make a good film.
- Phyllis Diller made her first film appearance here, in a role based on Texas Guinan, a famous actress and restaurateur who owned the celebrated 300 Club in New York City in the 1920s.
- Two songs were directly inspired by the movie: Jackie DeShannon's 1966 song "Splendor in the Grass", and "Hey Deanie", written by Eric Carmen, whose Shaun Cassidy recording reached No. 7 on the US Billboard Hot 100 in the winter of 1978.
