Splendor in the Grass 1961

      The setting of this film is 1928 in southeast Kansas.  This is an oil rich area and some of the townspeople have stock that is rising in price every day.  The Stamper family is more involved with the oil business and Ace Stamper is an oil baron.  They are also becoming wealthier everyday as the price of oil rises.  Bud Stamper and Deanie Loomis are in high school together and they are both seniors.  They are in love and they want to get married at a later date.  Bud’s father Ace wants him to go to Yale and he won’t take no for an answer.  Deanie’s parents also want her to go to college and they will use their oil stock money to pay for her to go.  Bud’s sister Ginny has come home and the gossip about her has preceded her arrival.  Ace feels he has failed his daughter Ginny but he’s not going to fail Bud. 

     I really liked this movie!!  The story has a lot of depth plus you can relate to the characters and their struggles.  From the beginning to the end, you don’t know where this is going.  You can feel the elation the people have with the oil money is up and they will feel deep depths of despair if the oil price deflates.  There is intense feeling and chemistry between Wood and Beatty.  All parents want their children to succeed but often too much pressure doesn’t help them.  4* (I really liked this movie)

124 min, Drama directed by Elia Kazan with Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, Pat Hingle, Audrey Christie, Barbara Loden, Zohra Lampert, Fred Stewart, Joanna Roos, John McGovern, Jan Norris, Martine Bartlett, Gary Lockwood.

Note:  Imdb 7.8 out of 10, 84% critic 90% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, TCM average user review 3.95* out of 5*, Amazon 4.6* out of 5* with 363 reviews.

Special Note:  Filmed in High Falls, New York City, Long Island, Bronx and Manhattan, New York.  The title of this film comes from the poem, Ode: Intimations of Immortality by William Wordsworth.  Natalie Wood was supposed to be a teenager and she was 22.  Warren Beatty was in the same class but he was 23.  All of the other teenagers were in their early to mid-twenties to correspond with the ages of Wood and Beatty.  Pat Hingle is acting as the character Ace Stamper.  Just before shooting began, he accidentally fell 54 feet down an elevator shaft in his apartment building.  It took over a year for him to recover but he incorporated his lurching walk as part of his character.  Jane Fonda tested for the role of Deanie and she didn’t get the role.  She told Kazan she wasn’t ambitious but that is what he was looking for.  This is the film debut for Warren Beatty, Sandy Dennis, Phyllis Diller, Marla Adams and Eugene Roche.  There is another film about the same subject from 1981.