Mar 04 2009
Splendor In The Grass (1961)
Splendor In The Grass is probably one of my favorite classic films. It was a really daring movie about forbidden love between a young budding teenager, Wilma Dean Loomis a.k.a Deenie Loomis who has to resist her sexual feelings towards her first love, Bud Stamper - the notorious son of one of the town’s most prominent families.
With Deenie and Bud’s father both having business relations, both parents talk the two love-struck teenagers to go their seperate ways and while Bud follows his father’s advice, it drives Deenie to despair, heartbreak and madness.
For a film written and made back in the early 60s, its elements and issues concerning love, sexuality, promiscuity and abortion are very much relevant in today’s society with high school teenagers.
Directed by Elia Kazan, written by William Inge (who made a brief cameo as a Protestant clergyman), Splendor In The Grass stars one of the most beautiful women ever on film (to me, that is) Natalie Wood as Deenie Loomis, and the dashing and charming Warren Beatty as Bud Stamper.
If you haven’t seen this or only seen it once a whole long time ago, I suggest you get the DVD to add to your collection! It’s a masterpiece!!
