Esplendor en la hierba

There are movies, and then there are sensorial experiences like SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS. The sound of the water in the first scene, the color of Natalie Wood skin, the absolutely black of Warren Beaty's hair, the smell of champagne in the "crazy party"... SPLENDOR IN THE GRASS is not only a movie, it's an experience that anyone that was once young can understand and feel. The characters go through love, sexual arousing, separation, and pain... not because of a villain, but because of life, and ultimately, because of themselves. The splendor of the title is that rare moment in life where everything clicks, the moment that you will remember forever from your youth. See it. You won't forget.

I found the film beautiful. Perhaps the best film ever to show the consequences of sexual repression. Natalie Wood is absolutely superb, both in terms of beauty and in terms of her fantastic performance. Warren Beatty, in his first film role, is fine too. Elia Kazan knew how to make movies. This "splendor in the grass", "on the waterfront", "a streetcar named desire", among others, are movies that remain in our memory, which made us experience sensations and feelings, which "touched" us in our soul.

this is not a moving story. this is not awfully romantic or sentimental. but what this is, its a wonderful expression of indecision and mental stigma that you go through adolescence - not just in 60s even now I would imagine.

one of the most recognizable starts in the film history. its worth watching just for this opening sequence.

Beatty's first film. great find. scenes with his dad are wonderfully done.

Natalie wood - perfect. superb actress.

awesome end! Don't miss it.

This is a fine movie, with a great screenplay by William Inge, director Elia Kazan's ability to convey powerful emotions, and a marvelous performance by Natalie Wood.

Typically relegated to the second ranks among playwrights, Inge deserves more critical respect than he receives. Here, as in "Picnic," he celebrates romantic love, shows how inseparable it is from sex, and portrays the damage done by a conventional world that insists on separating them.

We belittle the small-town characters in the film, who see the world in terms of "good" girls and "bad" girls, but many reviewers have shown a similarly reductionist outlook on a more sophisticated level. They have seen this movie as "Freudian," showing love to be a sublimation of sex. Or they have belittled it as just another "rebellious youth" film of the type that was so popular in the 1950s and early 1960s. Pauline Kael wrote about Natalie Wood's apparently too active "behind," and on TCM, Robert Osborne introduced the movie as one in which the young couple is motivated by "hormones."

In the movie, it is plain that the young couple truly love each other, and it is also plain that they desire each other sexually. So it always will be with young people in love. This is the glory of romance. People frequently love without a sexual involvement, and people frequently have sex without love. But romantic love is a matter of both "body" and "soul" acting as one.

This is a beautiful and powerful film - flawlessly acted, directed and written. It is easily the best of the sexual awakening movies that were so popular in the late fifties, early sixties. And why wouldn't it be - with Kazan at the helm and an original screenplay by William Inge.

The film begins with a similar theme to "Rebel Without a Cause" - that is why won't parents treat their children like human beings and really help them come to terms with becoming adults? But halfway through Inge does a clever turn-around and allows the kids to discover that their parents are human beings too, with all the weaknesses and frailties that go with being human. At the same time Inge portrays the coming of age of America as the joy of the roaring twenties moves into the gloom of the Depression.

The story is about how prejudice and blind morality destroys a great love - sex shouldn't be such a huge issue between two people who love each other, but the enormous pressures from outside to either do it or refrain from doing it cause confusion, pain and hurt. Who will ever forget Natalie Wood leaping naked from a bath screaming at her mother that she is not "spoiled"? Wood gives the performance of her life here, convincingly portraying adolescent love, a nervous breakdown, and the blossoming into woman-hood. Beatty too is splendid as the confused Bud. And both are so achingly beautiful!

The supporting cast is superb down to the smallest role. Barbara Loden is particularly memorable as Beatty's wild flapper sister, but Pat Hingle as his father, and Audrey Christie and Fred Stewart as Wood's parents are also unforgettable.

This is a resonant film that I believe will be more and more appreciated with the passing of time.