I picked up this DVD the other day after not having seen it for years and I forgot how bland Kim Novak is on the screen! Normally I really like her (I thought she was really good in The Man With the Golden Arm and Vertigo), but this movie? She seemed to have zero reaction.
He won. Get over it.
I've never been impressed with her acting, but man did I ever have the hots for her many decades ago. The film itself, is one of my very favorites.
shareGive the girl a break . . . This is her first major film and she was known to be anxious about whether or not she could deliver a good performance. Though it's not "Oscar" material, she delivers a decent, believable performance, with a significant highlight being her sensual dance scene on the dock with
Holden. She improved significantly over the coming years, as most performers do, and she was definitely a pretty, sexy gal. However, Novak seems a bit physically mature for being only 19 and Holden seems too old for anything near "in his twenties". But, the story's good so I just had to ignore those issues.
I think Kim Novak was alright. Was she self-conscious? Yes. But I'll give Kim the benefit of the doubt because Picnic was one of her earliest film roles and she was still learning as an actress.
Now, Susan Strasberg was great! I'm not a huge fan of this movie but Susan Strasberg was so naturalistic in this movie, I felt she wasn't even acting in this film. I thought Susan Strasberg was the standout in this film. She acted circles around her onscreen sister but I guess that's what happens when you are the daughter of Lee Strasberg.
Again, I am not pitting the two actresses against each other. I just prefer and remember Susan more than I do Kim after seeing this movie.
William Holden, on the other hand, was so miscast because I felt he looked very bit of his age and then some. Whoever cast Holden in this film should have been shot. Could you imagine how much of a classic this movie would have been if they had cast Paul Newman or Marlon Brando as Hal opposite Kim Novak? Damn!
Mother, you have to laugh sometime, or people will think you're a lesbian.
Agree with OP. They could have replaced her with a mannequin and the film would have not changed a wink. No excuse that this was her first film, etc. When you get a lead in a Hollywood film you better do more with it than just memorize a script.
shareIt didn't help, though, that Madge hardly had any personality.
shareThat's the real problem, Madge is written as kind of a blank. She's this dopey girl who doesn't seem to have anything in her head but a vague resentment at being treated like a prize heifer, and a lot of hormones that ramp up as the play goes along.
It's not a role that offers anything to a skilled actress, and IMHO Novak did about as much with it as could be done. She was beautiful, she was slow-witted, by the end she was genuinely (and foolishly) passionate. That's about all there is to Madge.
True, but she read her lines flat and monotone like she was reciting them off a cue card. Even slow witted, shallow characters can have some interesting traits, habits, quirks even, that give the performance some life. Even her dancing was wooden. She just stood there clapping her hands in the air. What was so seductive about that? The one thing she was supposed to be good at was flirting and even that was dull. I don’t want to keep ragging on Ms Novak because I know she went on to do some good performances in other films (she was in Vertigo, right?). The director should have helped her create a better, more nuanced performance.
shareActually, her flat line readings were appropriate for the character, who wasn't very lively, or interested in anything, at least until the hormones flared up. The whole town is supposed to be flat and torpid, there's no more going outside than Madge has going on inside.
It's like I said about Dakota Johnson in that awful "50 Shades if Gray" film... she didn't seem to be an actress playing an idiot, she seemed like a real idiot who'd wandered in front of the camera! And that's about all an actor can do with a role like Nadge, make the stupidity seem real.