
It's 1928 in oil rich southeast Kansas. High school seniors Bud Stamper and Deanie Loomis are in love with each other. Bud, the popular football captain, and Deanie, the sensitive soul, are "good" kids who have only gone as far as kissing. Unspoken to each other, they expect to get married to each other one day. But both face pressures within the relationship, Bud who has the urges to go farther despite knowing in his heart that if they do that Deanie will end up with a reput... (Full plot summary below)
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It's 1928 in oil rich southeast Kansas. High school seniors Bud Stamper and Deanie Loomis are in love with each other. Bud, the popular football captain, and Deanie, the sensitive soul, are "good" kids who have only gone as far as kissing. Unspoken to each other, they expect to get married to each other one day. But both face pressures within the relationship, Bud who has the urges to go farther despite knowing in his heart that if they do that Deanie will end up with a reputation like his own sister, Ginny Stamper, known as the loose, immoral party girl, and Deanie who will do anything to hold onto Bud regardless of the consequences. They also face pressures from their parents who have their own expectation for their offspring. Bud's overbearing father, Ace Stamper, the local oil baron, does not believe Bud can do wrong and expects him to go to Yale after graduation, which does not fit within Bud's own expectations for himself. And the money and image conscious Mrs. Loomis just wants Deanie to get married as soon as possible to Bud so that Deanie will have a prosperous life in a rich family. When Bud makes a unilateral decision under these pressures, it leads to a path which affects both his and Deanie's future.
Leave your thoughts about Splendor in the Grass.
| New York TimesBosley CrowtherThe authority and eloquence of the theme emerge in the honest, sensitive acting of Mr. Beatty and Miss Wood. |
| Chicago TribuneMichael WilmingtonMiss Wood has a beauty and radiance that carry her through a role of violent passions and depressions with unsullied purity and strength. There is poetry in her performance, and her eyes in the final scene bespeak the moral significance and emotional fulfillment of this film. |
| Film Freak CentralWalter Chawa sometimes-devastating portrait of youth culture on the brink |
| Senses of CinemaArthur RankinAn excellent critique of a specific historical moment in US history and reveals the flaws that were present in its belief system. |
| VarietyVariety StaffThere is something awkward about the picture's mechanical rhythm. There are missing links and blind alleys within the story. |
| EmanuelLevy.ComEmanuel LevyOne 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. |
| Slant MagazineEric HendersonInge’s scenario unravels alarmingly once the two would-be lovers start to drift apart thanks to Deanie’s nervous breakdown and the simultaneous (almost psychically connected) market crash of 1929, but the first half of the film is a tour de force of deferred urges, contortion acts of awkward intimacy, and the thrill of adolescence. |
| LarsenOnFilmJosh LarsenSplendor in the Grass may seem quaint, even silly. But anyone who’s thrown – or endured – a teenager’s temper tantrum will recognize the anger and confusion on the screen as genuine. In that sense, Splendor will never be out of touch. |
| Entertainment WeeklyLisa SchwarzbaumWith his ripe lips, flirty eyes, and pre-Calvin Klein-era androgynous appeal, the 24-year-old Warren is utterly believable as a boy who drives Natalie Wood plumb insane with sexual frustration in William Inge’s overheated melodrama. |
| Ozus' World Movie ReviewsDennis SchwartzThis romantic sudser is darker than those of its day, as it shockingly deals with matters Hollywood had previously kept under wraps. |