William Inge’s intense drama of teenage angst comes to HD with rich Technicolor hues. Elia Kazan’s film has only improved, with performances that couldn’t be bettered. For Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty’s Deanie and Bud, sexual suppression leads to emotional hysteria, all against a 1929 backdrop of prohibition and a stock market boom. Pat Hingle, Audrey Christie and especially Barbara Loden sculpt superb characterizations — the cast includes Zohra Lampert, Jan Norris, Gary Lockwood, Sandy Dennis and Phyllis Diller. It’s a powerful, relevant slice of Americana.

Splendor in the Grass
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1961 / Color / 1:85 widescreen / 124 min. / Street Date June 24, 2025 / Available at MovieZyng / 21.99
Starring: Natalie Wood, Pat Hingle, Audrey Christie, Barbara Loden, Zohra Lampert, Warren Beatty, Fred Stewart, Joanna Roos, John McGovern, Jan Norris, Martine Bartlett, Gary Lockwood, Sandy Dennis, Crystal Field, Marla Adams, Lynn Loring, Phyllis Diller, Sean Garrison, Godfrey Cambridge, William Inge, Eugene Roche.
Cinematography: Boris Kaufman
Production Designer: Richard Sylbert
Set Decorator: Gene Callahan
Costume Designer: Anna Hill Johnstone
Film Editor: Gene Milford
Music Composer: David Amram
Written by William Inge
Associate Producers William Inge, Charles H. Maguire
Produced and Directed by Elia Kazan

It’s interesting to note which movies hold up over time, and which don’t. Some pictures seem to go in and out of favor, and every once in a while we re-see something that suddenly strikes us as greater than ever. Elia Kazan’s career legacy has its political issues but there’s no denying that the majority of his work is superior by any standard. Some of his issue movies now feel forced — Gentleman’s Agreement, Viva Zapata!, Man on a Tightrope — but his filmography overall is loaded with masterpieces, plain and simple.

Long overdue on Blu-ray is Kazan’s Splendor in the Grass, a drama that goes beyond intense, to ‘intimate emotional ordeal.’  Natalie Wood was nominated for best actress for this film, not the blockbuster  West Side Story released just a month or two later. It has what is probably Wood’s best performance; she lost to Sophia Loren in Two Women. The film was Warren Beatty’s first feature, making him an instant star.

The original screenplay by William Inge won the Oscar that year; his story follows up on his Pulitzer Prize-winning play  Picnic, which is also about the problems of young people in Southeastern Kansas. Inge knew the area well, having been born and raised there. Before his first major play Come Back Little Sheba became a success, he worked as an instructor at Independence Community College.

Michel Ciment’s  interview book tells us that Kazan met William Inge when directing The Dark at the Top of the Stairs for the stage; Kazan claims that he rewrote most of Inge’s screenplay. Kazan was particularly proud of the film’s non-sensational finale, a true-to-life scene that keeps Splendor from resembing a Hollywood product.

Inge’s main theme hasn’t dated at all. The title is a William Wordsworth quote about a remembered blaze of youthful sexuality, a lost moment of joy: ” … nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower… For the small-town teenagers of 1928 Kansas, sexuality is a mire of frustration. Inge captures the cruel high-school relationships fraught with insecurities; Elia Kazan’s direction of a phenomenal cast makes us feel as if their story is our story.

Sweethearts Wilma Dean ‘Deanie’ Loomis and Bud Stamper (Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty) are popular high schoolers under pressures they don’t understand. Deanie is so gone for Bud that she floats through school beaming just to be near him. Her mother Frieda (Audrey Christie) insists that good girls don’t want sex, yet is delighted that Deanie is in love with the son of one of the richest men in town. Bud wants a simple life as a farmer, but is crushed by the demands of his ambitious father, Ace Stamper (Pat Hingle). The new-money oil millionaire wants Bud to stay single until he graduates Yale. When Bud dares to speak of his own plans, Ace almost becomes violent in his bullying. Complicating the scene is Bud’s older sister Ginny (Barbara Loden), who has rebelled against Ace by breaking all the rules, dressing as a ‘flapper’ and running wild.

The young lovers go through an emotional whirlwind trying to fit themselves into their parents’ plans — to be good, to succeed, to win approval. The spirited Deanie wants to be carried off by her love for Bud, but she instead is made to feel unclean, like a criminal. Bud knows what he wants, but opposing his overpoweringly aggressive father seems impossible. They have nobody to talk to. Bud looks to his family doctor for explanations, but the man just smiles and changes the subject. Deanie tries to talk to Reverend Whitman (William Inge), who seems to be living in his own private trap of regret … he reminds us of the choirmaster character in Thornton Wilder’s  Our Town.

Pressures overwhelm the frustrated Bud and Deanie. Bud worries himself sick, and must recover from pneumonia. The only answer seems to be to break up, which sends poor Deanie into a psychological breakdown. Bud obediently goes to Yale, but finds it impossible to apply himself to Ivy league studies. It almost doesn’t matter — everything will soon change for both of them.

Splendor in the Grass takes place at a specific turning point in 20th century history. It is the second film in Elia Kazan’s ‘Americana Trilogy.’  America America is about the immigrant experience, and  Wild River is about the TVA federal works project of the 1930s. A main event in Splendor is the catastrophic finish of the Roaring Twenties, the Stock Market crash of 1929. Bud and Deanie’s world is rocked by forces out of their control.

William Inge said that his story was about the importance of ‘forgiving our parents.’ The previous generation seems completely blocked on the issue of sex. Deanie’s mother has sunk the Loomis money into the booming stock market, which promises riches that excite her more than her husband Del (Fred Lewis).

(Spoiler paragraph) A few months later, the almightly Stamper family will be humbled by the stock market crash. Ace’s wealth is leveraged with paper that becomes worthless. It’s ironic that, because Frieda and Del must liquidate their stock to send Deanie to a sanitarium, they don’t lose everything as well.

The teen world in Splendor in the Grass is highly believable, even if Kazan must use 20-somethings to portray teenagers. The school dynamic is cruel but there are no villains. The teacher Miss Metcalf means well, but misreads Deanie’s emotional crisis as ‘spoiled acting out.’ Deanie’s main rival, the ‘loose girl’ Juanita Howard (Jan Norris) is equally insecure, and just fending for herself.

Nervous breakdowns seem possible for everyone we see. Bud’s sister Ginny is the Stamper black sheep. She carries on with whatever man is available, even a bootlegger. Ace pretends that she can be controlled, but Ginny would sooner blow up their house with dynamite. At the Stampers’ big New Year’s event, she drunkenly attracts a group of stag partygoers and all but incites a gang rape. Bud receives a beating trying to defend her.

Elia Kazan described the Ginny Stamper character as a genuine rebel without a cause. With no plan, no theory and no enemy to fight, the woman pitches herself headlong toward self-destruction. Barbara Loden’s performance is explosive now and must have felt shocking in 1961. Ms. Loden only appeared in four feature films, starting with a few choice moments in Kazan’s Wild River. Her other big achievement is 1970’s  Wanda which she also directed.

We think this is by far Natalie Wood’s most impressive performance — under Kazan’s direction, her Deanie has a natural poise, and when she’s happy she beams like a small child. But she also seems unbalanced from the beginning. She hovers at the brink of losing emotional control, and the slightest gesture from Bud can upset her. The natural heartthrob Warren Beatty expresses teen discomfort and distress well, and doesn’t overdo the method mannerisms. Nobody in the production seems to have warmed up to the actor, not even his director. But Kazan thought Beatty had a lot to offer, more than James Dean did.

Kazan knew everything about actors. Every performance is a gem. Pat Hingle plays older than his years, embodying the desperate rage for success that can turn businessmen into monsters.  ↗  Ace is entirely understandable — he came from nothing, and is obsessed with creating a Stamper dynasty. In just a couple of scenes, Splendor crystallizes the insanity of the Stock Market bubble. Unable to cope with financial ruin, Ace drags Bud to a wild celebration at the ‘300’ nightclub hosted by the famed  Texas Guinan.  ↖  It’s a great role for Phyllis Diller, who in just a few seconds nails an entire era’s affluence and vulgarity. For Ace, it all ends in a back alley.

Splendor can boast some impressive movie debuts. Besides the dramatic bit for Phyllis Diller, it’s the first film credit for Warren Beatty and Sandy Dennis.  ↙  Dennis plays Kay, a schoolmate of Deanie who wishes that Bud were her beau. It’s also the first time we took note of actors Zohra Lampert and Gary Lockwood. His high school opportunist is not above dating the despondent Deanie, with a hope of making a score. Ms. Lampert was one of the most original discoveries of the 1960s, with an utterly transparent face and a glowing smile.  ↘

In 1961, mainstream romances with young people were mostly hopeful fantasies, perhaps with an added song by Connie Francis. Splendor in the Grass is a much darker story. It and Kazan’s Wild River are also realistic period pictures before Bonnie & Clyde made mainstream audiences think much about period accuracy. Much of the young audience of 1961 would know nothing of the great stock market crash, just three decades’ removed.

Splendor was filmed in and around New York City, not in Kansas like the 1955 hit movie of  Picnic. Correspondent Bill Shaffer reminds us that Southeast Kansas isn’t quite as lush and verdant as seen in the show, especially not in summer. Michel Ciment noted a theme of ‘water’ symbolism running through Splendor, with the lover’s lane by a river spillway, and of course Natalie Wood’s then-edgy bathtub scenes. The way Deenie throws herself on her bed indicates that her entire life force is turned toward sex … and everything in her environment is blocking her.

The French release of Splendor reportedly included a shot of Deanie running to her bedroom, semi-nude. A blurb for Variety, probably a publicist’s leak, let slip that the shot had been deleted from the U.S. cut. In the waning decade of the old Production Code, studios walked the line for the censors while promising shows as provocative as those from Europe.

Splendor in the Grass is not lightweight entertainment. It reminds us of our own early romantic experiences, whether they be semi-tragedies or the usual mix of disappointment and regret. But the good memories … that Wordsworth poem is a keeper. Kazan expressed great satisfaction with Inge’s final scene, that shows what becomes of a ‘great love’ defeated by social forces, family interference, and an emotional breakdown. It’s a mature admission that real-life conflicts don’t resolve as they do in traditional dramas.

Bud seems wholly fulfilled by his no-frills farm life. We love Zohra Lampert’s simple shrug, at what Deanie’s visit may or may not mean. She’s secure with her man, and that’s that. In the penultimate scene, Inge and Kazan include a nice bit about the need to forgive one’s parents. Deanie’s sanity is confirmed when she kisses her father on the forehead, acknowledging that she knew he always wanted to be on her side.

The Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of Splendor in the Grass makes the jump to HD in good shape. Cameraman Boris Kaufman shot many acclaimed films, but the classics were all in B&W. Splendor’s color schemes have a handsome non-Hollywood quality, due also to great design work by desinger Richard Sylbert. The costumes and hairstyles also seem authentic for the period, although the neckline of Deenie’s final white dress would seem extreme for Kansas in 1931. But we weren’t there personally, so what do we know?

We thought the DVD from 2009 looked quite good and so did a quick comparison. The HD reminds us more of Warners’ great Technicolor print Sherman Torgan showed us at his New Beverly Cinema 20 years ago. The images are dark and rich and the color saturated. We approve heartily. On our 65″ LG screen, the silvery main title background shimmered in a way I don’t remember — the effect is almost like video noise. The old DVD couldn’t begin to resolve the detail, so the image just broke up. It’s not a problem, and the effect may just be my setup anyway.

The Blu-ray has a trailer and an excellent Elia Kazan career documentary from 1995 by Richard Schickel, narrated by Eli Wallach and with full interview participation from the director himself. It’s a fine overview with good insights into all of his movies. Shickel all but skips Kazan’s experience with the HUAC committees and the blacklist. He also overlooks the twisted history lesson of Kazan and John Steinbeck’s Viva Zapata!  Emiliano Zapata was not an illiterate. His assassins weren’t treacherous Communists, but bounty hunters hired by a Government colonel.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Splendor in the Grass
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Feature length documentary Elia Kazan: A Director’s Journey
Trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: July 19, 2025
(7358gras)

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