WHEN I was little, I remember hearing about a scandalous movie called “Picnic” which hinted that people who weren’t even married had sex.
Whatever that was. With Kim Novak, whoever that was.
It was never shown on television before my bedtime so I never saw it, although my mother said she’d seen it and it was something all right.
I guess I was finally allowed to see it by the time I hit, like, 35!
By that time, it was hardly scandalous. I mean, I thought it was OK, but not something all right.
For one thing, the women wore dresses to a picnic for God’s sake.
I have seen it since and changed my mind completely.
I even came to appreciate the wonderfulness of the 1950’s sexual tension that has been absent in movies and life since, oh, about 1968.
So, it came as no small shock to find out that this scandalous-then, innocent-now movie was being remade, and for TV yet.
I never understood why anyone would bother remaking good movies, when there were so many bad movies that should have been good that they could be remaking correctly.
I take it back.
This reworking of William Inge’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play (then movie with Novak and William Holden) is really good.
Remarkably, it retains 1950’s sexual tension even though it’s re-set in the late sixties, and was shot in 2000.
Gretchen Mol stars as Kim Novak, er, Madge, the hometown beauty queen who is set to marry rich boy Alan (Ben Caswell). Her mom (Bonnie Bedelia) is determined that her daughters will not make the same mistake that she did and marry for love when she could marry for money.
On the eve of the big town picnic where Madge will be crowned, drifter Hal (Josh Brolin) shows up.
Hal was Ben’s poor pal who was thrown out of college for fighting. Although, of course, it wasn’t his fault.
Neither was it his fault that he stole $500.
Brolin has so much male sexual energy that he gets both sisters and a couple of the spinster ladies in town all shook up.
Then all hell breaks loose – spinsters sleep around, virgins lose their innocence and girls make anti-war speeches. (The last thing I fully realize has no plot relevance whatsoever.)
Hey, Brolin might shake up some of us at home too. I mean the man can kiss. (Not that I’ve had personal experience, but hell, you can just tell!)
I have no idea why this crickety old drama works as well as it does now, but it does.
Everyone from Moll to Brolin to Mary Steenburgen (the “old maid” school teacher) to Chad Morgan as Madge’s little sister (who is also awakening sexually) to Bedelia and Jay O. Sanders as a shopkeeper are terrific.
Producer Blue Andre assembled all the right stuff and made a movie – which logically is no longer relevant to our lives – work on all kinds of levels.
And the soundtrack is spot on.
“Picnic” may not be the best thing on, but compared to the mid-season junk-ola I’ve been so tragically exposed to, it’s a fun night of old fashioned TV.
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“Picnic”
Sunday at 9 p.m. on WCBS/Ch. 2