Splendor in the Grass (1961)
Average Rating: 7.2/10
Reviews Counted: 13
Fresh: 11 | Rotten: 2
No consensus yet.
Average Rating: N/A
Critic Reviews: 1
Fresh: 0 | Rotten: 1
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Average Rating: 4.1/5
User Ratings: 8,118
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Movie Info
1961's premiere "date" movie represented the screen debut of Warren Beatty. Set in the 1920s, William Inge's screenplay concerns the superheated romance between working-class high schooler Natalie Wood and rich kid Beatty. Trying their best to keep their relationship from going "all the way," Beatty and Wood go through a series of unsatisfying interim romances. The troubled Wood attempts suicide and is sent to a mental institution, while Beatty impregnates freewheeling waitress Zohra Lampert.
Oct 10, 1961 Wide
Feb 15, 2000
Warner Home Video
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Cast
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Natalie Wood
Wilma Dean Loomis -
Warren Beatty
Bud Stamper -
Pat Hingle
Ace Stamper -
Audrey Christie
Mrs. Loomis -
Barbara Loden
Ginny Stamper -
Zohra Lampert
Angelina -
Fred Stewart
Del Loomis -
Joanna Roos
Mrs. Stamper -
Jan Norris
Juanita Howard -
Gary Lockwood
Toots -
Sandy Dennis
Kay -
Crystal Field
Hazel -
Marla Adams
June -
Lynn Loring
Carolyn -
John McGovern
Doc Smiley -
Martine Bartlett
Miss Metcalf -
Sean Garrison
Glenn -
Phyllis Diller
Texas Guinan -
Phoebe Mackay
Maid -
William Inge
Minister -
Charles Knox Robinson III
Johnny Masterson -
Jake LaMotta
Waiter
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All Critics (16) | Top Critics (3) | Fresh (13) | Rotten (2) | DVD (10)
A complicated film that never really successfully yokes together the themes of money-making and sexuality, it reveals both Kazan's operatic sensibility and his inability to follow an argument rigorously through.
Top CriticThis romantic sudser is darker than those of its day, as it shockingly deals with matters Hollywood had previously kept under wraps.
A smug sneer toward all the squares.
Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty fight the good fight, but she should've just gone down faster than the NYSE did in October 1929.
Splendor in the Grass is a prestigious, top-of-the-line, sensitively-handled melodramatic literalization of the axiom "If you touch yourself too much, you'll go crazy."
Youth exploitation pictures were all the rage at the time, and while this is better than some in execution and intent, it's still exactly that.
One of Kazan's two or three mastrpieces, this powerful small-town film examines growing pains, respressed sexuality, and social hypocrisy, featuring Warren Beatty, in an astonishing screen debut, and Natalie Wood, at their very best.
a sometimes-devastating portrait of youth culture on the brink
Probably Wood's finest hour
Splendor in the Grass (1961) is another of director Elia Kazan's dramatic, hyperbolic films with daring and controversial content for its times - sexual repression
Watchable but not great.
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August 20, 2012:
Phyllis Diller: 1917-2012Phyllis Diller, the housewife turned humorist who aimed some of her sharpest barbs at herself,...
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Foreign Titles
- Splendor in the Grass (1961) (DE)
- Splendor in the Grass (UK)
