Picnic (1955 Film) - Plot

Plot

Hal Carter (William Holden) is a former college football star, adrift and unemployed after army service and a failed Hollywood acting career. On Labor Day (September 5, 1955), he arrives by freight train in a Kansas town to visit his fraternity buddy, Alan Benson (Cliff Robertson), the son of a wealthy grain elevator owner, Mr. Benson (Raymond Bailey). Working for his breakfast by doing chores in the backyard of kindly Mrs. Potts (Verna Felton), Hal stops paperboy Bomber (Nick Adams) from pestering neighbor Madge Owens (Kim Novak), who happens to be dating Alan. Her single-parent mother (Betty Field) is hoping Madge will marry Alan, which would thus raise both Madge and herself into the town's highest, respectable social circles. Alan wants to marry Madge, but his father thinks she is beneath him. Madge tells her mother she doesn't love Alan and is weary of being liked only because she is pretty.

Hal gets along wonderfully with almost everyone, and Alan is very happy to see "same old Hal", whom he takes to the family's sprawling grain elevator operations. He promises Hal a steady job as a "wheat scooper" (though Hal is disappointed he is not made an executive) and invites Hal to the town's Labor Day picnic. Hal is wary about going to the picnic, but Alan nudges him into it, saying Hal's "date" for the picnic will be Madge's bookish younger sister Millie (Susan Strasberg), who is quickly drawn to Hal's cheerful demeanor and charisma. Alan reassures Mrs. Owens that although Hal flunked out of college and lost his football scholarship because he did not study, there are no worries about him. The afternoon carries on very happily, until Hal carelessly starts talking about himself too much and Alan stops him with a cutting remark. As the sun goes down, everyone wanders off. Millie draws a sketch of Hal and tells him she secretly writes poetry. Hal's behavior towards her is friendly and utterly trustworthy, but his replies show he has no understanding of her world at all. Madge is named the town's annual Queen of Neewollah ("Halloween" spelled backwards), and Hal longingly gazes at her as she is brought down the river in a swan-shaped pedal-boat. They shyly say "Hi" to each other as she glides by.

Middle-aged schoolteacher Rosemary (Rosalind Russell), who rents a room at the Owens house, has been brought to the picnic by store owner Howard Bevens (Arthur O'Connell). When the band plays dance music, Howard says he can't dance, so Rosemary dances with Millie. Hal and Howard then start dancing together, which nettles Rosemary. She grabs Howard, who then dances with her. Hal tries to show Millie a dance he learned in Los Angeles, but Millie can not quite get the beat. Madge stumbles upon this, begins clapping handily to the beat, and the two begin dancing together. Having been cast aside and ignored by both Rosemary and Hal, Millie sulks off and starts drinking from a whiskey flask hidden in Howard's jacket. Rosemary, drunk from the same whiskey, jealously breaks up the dance between Madge and Hal. Rosemary flings herself at Hal, saying he reminds her of a Roman gladiator. When Hal tries to ward off the schoolteacher, she rips his shirt then bitterly calls him a bum. Mrs. Owens and Alan show up and think Hal has caused a messy scandal, made all the worse when Millie breaks down, screaming, "Madge is the pretty one!" and becomes ill from the whiskey. Rosemary, still blinded by her anger, tells Mrs. Owens that Hal gave Millie the whiskey, while Howard's plea that he brought the whiskey seems to fall on deaf ears. By now a crowd is watching, and Hal flees into the darkness.

Madge follows Hal to Alan's car and gets in with him. He angrily tells her to go home. However, she won't budge, so he drives off with her to town. 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. Madge kisses Hal, which astonishes him. They promise to meet after she gets off work at six the next evening. Hal drives back to Alan's house to return the car, but Alan has called the police and wants Hal arrested. After trying to talk things out, Hal flees the house in Alan's car with the police following close behind. Leaving the car back by the river, Hal goes into the water, gets away from them and shows up at Howard's apartment, asking to spend the night there. Howard is very understanding and now has his own worries: a highly distraught, desperate and remorseful 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 becomes overjoyed, thinking he has come to take her away. Flustered in front of the whole household and other schoolteachers, Howard wordlessly goes along with this. As he passes Madge on the stairs, he tells her Hal is hiding in the backseat of his car. Hal is able to slip away before the other women gleefully paint and attach streamers and tin cans to Howard's car, throwing rice and asking him where he'll take Rosemary for their honeymoon. As Howard and Rosemary happily drive off to the Ozarks, Hal and Madge meet by a shed behind the house. He asks her to meet him in Tulsa, where he can get a room and a job at a hotel as a bellhop and elevator operator. Mrs. Owens finds them by the shed and threatens to call the police. 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 (but also nudged on by Mrs. Potts), boards a bus for Tulsa.