115 minute running time so at least 15 minutes too long. This was a deeply weird movie from the mid-1950s, based on a play, interestingly weird, but still, whoa. William Holden and his tanned naked torso sending the women in a small town in Kansas into hysterics … Kim Novak can’t act and recall that Hitchcock used to call “that fat Polack” (he was a real bastard) … Holden is in his late thirties and Novak is 21 or 22 years old, so it doesn’t really fly, but it was neat to see how the town spinsters reacted to Holden … you don’t see depictions of sex-crazed/frustrated women that often, esp. in mid-1950s movies, but it was sort of wonderful. Novak’s hot little sister played by a Jewish-American Princess named Strasberg (her Dad was named Lee), which was nice to see — that part wouldn’t have worked if she were truly plain. This was a John Farr recommendation, and I’m glad I saw it, though I certainly wouldn’t recommend it myself (I only choose the top 1% after all).

This blogger wrote a little deeper review: “Picnic is about repressed sexuality and its corresponding price.“

You're a fake — the gutter is where you came from and the gutter is where you belong!