The film dramatizes 24 hours in the life of a small Kansas town in the mid-20th century during the Labor Day holiday. It is the story of an outsider whose appearance disrupts and rearranges the lives of those whom he encounters.
Plot
On the morning of Labor Day 1955, a freight train brings vagrant Hal Carter to a Kansas town to visit his fraternity friend Alan Benson. While he stays with kind Helen Potts, Hal also meets Alan's girlfriend Madge Owens, her sister Millie, and their mother Flo. Alan is happy to see the "same old Hal" and shows him his family's sprawling grain-elevator operations. He promises Hal a steady job as a "wheat scooper" (though Hal would prefer to start off as an executive) and invites him to attend the town's Labor Day picnic. Later that day, Rosemary, a middle-aged schoolteacher, plans to accompany the picnic with her friend Howard Bevans.
At the picnic, Madge is crowned the seasonal Queen of Neewollah ("Halloween" spelt backwards). As Hal dances with Madge, an intoxicated Rosemary watches. She interrupts them and insists he dance with her. Hal is uncomfortable and resists, and Rosemary tears his shirt. Millie gets up, claiming to be sick. As Madge tries to help her, Millie pushes her away, saying everyone always thinks "Madge is the pretty one." She runs off, and Howard finds a bottle of alcohol she left behind, which her mother Flo inadvertently sees. When she asks who had given liquor to her underage daughter, Rosemary blames Hal. Embittered by Hal's rejection, Rosemary accuses him of being a fake who is just scared to act his real age, and afraid of ending up in the gutter "where you belong."
Madge follows Hal to Alan's car and gets in with him. By the river, he tells her he was sent to reform school as a boy for stealing a motorcycle and that his whole life is a failure. They kiss. Outside Madge's house, they promise to meet after she finishes work the next evening.
Hal drives back to Alan's house to return the car, but Alan has called the police and wants him arrested. Hal flees the house in the car with the police following close behind. He shows up at Howard's apartment, asking to spend the night there. Howard is very understanding and now has his own worries: Rosemary has begged him to marry her. Back at the Owens house, Madge and Millie cry themselves to sleep in their shared room.
The next morning, Howard comes to the Owens house, intending to tell Rosemary he wants to wait, but at the sight of him she is overjoyed, thinking he has come to take her away. He wordlessly goes along with the misunderstanding. As Howard passes Madge on the stairs, he tells her Hal is hiding in the back seat of his car. Hal is able to slip away before the other women gleefully decorate Howard's car.
While Howard and Rosemary happily drive off to the Ozarks, Hal and Madge meet by a shed behind the house. He tells her that he loves her and asks her to meet him in Tulsa, where they can marry and he can get a job at a hotel as a bellhop and elevator operator. Mrs. Owens finds them by the shed and threatens to call the police. Madge and Hal embrace and kiss.
Hal runs to catch a passing freight train, crying out to Madge, "You love me! You love me!" Upstairs in their room, Millie tells Madge to "do something bright" for once in her life and go to Hal. Madge packs a small suitcase and, despite her mother's tears, boards a bus for Tulsa.
Columbia Pictures acquired the screen rights to William Inge's play Picnic for $350,000 in September 1953.[4]Daniel Taradash once indicated that Columbia studio head Harry Cohn had offered him the opportunity to direct Picnic in exchange for writing the script. However, Joshua Logan, who also directed Picnic on Broadway, was hired instead.[2] Logan had previously directed I Met My Love Again (1938) and Picnic would be the second feature film he directed in 17 years.[5]
Casting
William Holden had one film left on his contract with Columbia Pictures. When Cohn offered Picnic, Holden, who was 37 years old at the time, had considered himself too old for the lead role as Hal Carter and declined.[6] He once complained, "I'm too damned old and too conservative to do a striptease."[7] Holden's talent agent persuaded him to take the role, and he agreed.[6] However, he settled for a paltry salary of $30,000 instead of the $250,000 he would have otherwise earned. To prepare for the role, Holden exercised at the gym and shaved his chest for the shirtless shots.[7] Logan was reportedly nervous about his dancing for the "Moonglow" scene. Thus, he took Holden to Kansas roadhouses where he practiced steps in front of jukeboxes with choreographer Miriam Nelson.[7]
According to one account, Cohn had pushed for Kim Novak, who was under contract to Columbia, to be cast as Madge. "Take her, or I'll get a new director," Cohn reportedly once told Logan.[8] However, Logan disputed this account, in which he stated Cohn had merely suggested for the part, then, but did not insist on it. He felt Novak was very close to the character after he had discussed the part with her. However, Logan felt Novak's cropped, platinum blonde hair was ill-suited for the part and screen tested her twice with a waist-long auburn wig.[9]
While Novak was auditioning, Janice Rule, who originated the role as Madge on Broadway, was suggested by Logan for a screen test. Rule was allowed to apply her own makeup for the first audition, in which she returned with "her face shaded so grotesquely that I wondered if she had used her own mirror."[10] She was sent back, but her second test went over poorly. Taradash pushed for Carroll Baker, who had done a screen test, but Logan felt that she was too young.[10]
Eileen Heckart had played the school teacher Rosemary Sydney during its first Broadway run, but Harry Cohn wanted a bigger name, so Rosalind Russell was cast.[11] This was her first Hollywood film following her Tony Award-winning performance in Wonderful Town (1953).
Paul Newman was under contract to Warner Bros. and was unable to reprise his role as Alan. Logan instead cast Cliff Robertson, who had been in a touring company of Mister Roberts.[12]
For the part of Millie, Logan had wanted Kim Stanley, who also originated the role on stage, but felt she would appear too old on film. Susan Strasberg, the daughter of prominent Method drama teachers Lee and Paula Strasberg, was recommended and cast after she was given a screen test.[11]
Picnic was mostly shot on location around Hutchinson, Kansas.[7] Other Kansas locations include:
Halstead - Riverside Park is where the Labor Day picnic scenes were filmed.[13][14][15]:10 The merry-go-round and cable suspension footbridge, which spans the Little Arkansas River, still exist in the park on the north side of Halstead.[16]
Nickerson - the location of the two adjacent houses for the Owens family home and Mrs. Potts. It is where Hal (William Holden) "jumps a freight" to go to Tulsa and where Madge boards a bus in the last scene.[15]:11 211 and 207 South Nickerson Street are the locations of the two houses, Avenue H was used for the final bus scene. In the years since the filming, the rail spur was removed and replaced by Avenue G street, and the school was replaced with a modern school.[17]
Salina - the opening scene where Hal jumps off a train, then meets Alan (Cliff Robertson) at Alan's father's large house. This location is also used for the Saline River (where Madge kisses Hal) and the scene where Hal escapes from the police by running under a waterfall.[15]:8–9 The train and river scene is located northeast of the intersection of Iron Avenue and 4th Street.[16]
Sterling - where the pre-picnic swim in the lake was filmed.[15]:11 It was filmed at the Sterling Lake near Van Buren Street.
During filming of the picnic scenes in Halstead, Kansas, a tornado swept through the area, forcing the cast and crew to take cover. While the storm spared the set, it destroyed the city of Udall, Kansas, and the film crew drove their trucks and equipment there to help clean up the damage.[15]:10[18]
Reception
Box office
Picnic earned $6.3 million in box office rentals in the United States and Canada and $9 million worldwide.[19][20][3]
Critical reaction
Gene Arneel of Variety felt the "picnic scenes are dazzling, rapidly paced and abounding color. The dramatic material has strength and sting, as adapted by Taradash and staged by Logan. Picnic runs 115 minutes, but though sharply edited, this is excessive. Music and all technical work are in keeping with the top quality of Kohlmar's production."[21]Harrison's Reports called Picnic "[a]n excellent comedy-drama, adapted from the Broadway success of the same name. Photographed in CinemaScope and Technicolor, the poignant story offers an arresting blend of drama, comedy and compassion, centering around characters who are credible and human."[22]
Philip K. Scheuer of the Los Angeles Times wrote Picnic was "one of the more distinguished films of 1955. Like William Inge's earlier Come Back, Little Sheba, this brew of frustration and sex, from the Pulitzer Prize and Critics Award play, comes to a slow boil. Some of it, thereafter, is pretty scalding stuff."[23] The Chicago Tribune wrote: "It is a taut two hours of masterful movie making adapted from the Pulitzer prize winning play by William Inge, deftly shaped for the screen by Daniel Taradash, and sensitively directed by Joshua Logan. The story presents a cross-section of many lives, but the telling is never hurried, the detail is impressive, and the performances are some of the finest of the year."[24]
The performances of the cast were mostly well-received. The Chicago Tribune described William Holden as "brash and virile and somehow pathetic" yet "memorable", Rosalind Russell was "almost frighteningly good", Kim Novak was "beautiful but wooden as the pretty Madge, and little Susan Strasberg is effective as her younger sister, who wishes she were beautiful instead of bright."[24]Harrison's Reports felt Holden and Novak were both "effective" though they felt the "top acting honors" went to Russell and Arthur O'Connell.[22] Kate Cameron of the New York Daily News praised Russell for her "outstanding performance in the role of a love-starved school-teacher and while she may be accused of over-acting, it seems to me that the part, as written, calls for a forced display of histrionics, which Miss Russell delivers in full measure."[25]Variety also wrote Russell was a "standout, moving in her plea for marriage, amusing as she pretends indifference to men and pitiable in her whiskey-inspired outburst against Holden."[21]
On the other hand, A. H. Weiler of The New York Times wrote: "A viewer may have misgivings about the casting of William Holden in the role of the vagrant. He appears a mite too old for the part. But his portrayal is not callow ... Kim Novak, as the object of his affection, is a joy to behold."[26] A cover story in Time magazine wrote Holden was "miscast" and the performances of "Betty Field, Kim Novak, Susan Strasberg and Rosalind Russell—falls flat, or wants to."[27]
"Moonglow and Theme from 'Picnic'" by Morris Stoloff and the Columbia Pictures Orchestra reached #1 on the Billboard Top 100 and remained on the chart for 27 weeks.
"Moonglow and Theme from 'Picnic'" by George Cates and His Orchestra reached #4 on the Billboard Top 100 and remained on the chart for 22 weeks.
"Picnic", a vocal version by the McGuire Sisters, reached #13 on the Billboard Top 100 and remained on the chart for 20 weeks. The single was a double A-side with "Delilah Jones", a #37 hit.
At one point, the three singles were in the Top 40 simultaneously, and the Stoloff and Cates versions ranked consecutively at #3 and #4 in the Top 100 chart of June 2, 1956.
The soundtrack album reached #2 on the Billboard album chart, where it remained for 56 weeks beginning in February 1956.[37]
Subliminal marketing hoax
In 1957, marketing researcher James Vicary said he had included subliminal messages such as "eat popcorn" and "drink Coca-Cola" in public screenings of Picnic for six weeks, claiming sales of Coca-Cola and popcorn increased 18.1% and 57.8% respectively. However, after being unable to replicate the results, Vicary later admitted that he had falsified the data.[38]
12345Shaffer, Bill (Spring 2005). "The Summer of Picnic"(PDF). Kansas Heritage. 13 (1). Archived(PDF) from the original on October 10, 2022. Retrieved September 14, 2016.
↑Scheuer, Philip K. (December 7, 1955). "'Picnic' Realistic Comedy-Drama". Los Angeles Times. Part III, p. 9. Retrieved February 6, 2026– via Newspapers.com.
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