Deenie is another inspired creation by Natalie Wood, and the one in which she shows off her acting skills with a newfound confidence. Anyone who's read anything about Wood knows she had a profoundly controlling mother, and some of this tangled relationship seems to have seeped into Wood's portrait of a young girl with real issues around her mom. Few of us who have seen the film will ever entirely forget the scene in which she stands up, dripping wet, in the bathtub to defy her mother, and to send the mother the message that she is no longer a little girl but a woman with a grown woman's needs. In its days this was shocking and some thought Natalie had lost her mind along with the rest of her wardrobe, for nudity was still a very rare thing in the straitlaced Hollywood cinema of the 1950s. Director Elia Kazan was perhaps the only man who could have elicited such a strong performance out of her. Kazan himself saw this film as the culmination of a long line of movies he himself had shepherded through to success, a group of films which did much to put the "adult" back into movies, everything from BABY DOLL to WILD RIVER. Indeed, SPLENDOR was his last real success, either on the screen or stage, for the 1960s left him behind in more ways than one, even though he lived another forty years his best days were long behind him (though surprisingly in recent years there has been a burst of acclaim for the garish ARRANGEMENT, the film he thought his most personal but which was his biggest flop. As for Warren Beatty, with whom Wood was in real life "involved" as they say, this film showed him off at his best and might have been written especially for him, by a smitten William Inge, the Broadway playwright who had had four great hits on the stage, but who had never before attempted a screen original. This too was Inge's last success, but for Beatty it was only the beginning to a fine career. And for Wordsworth? SPLENDOR did for the 91th century Romantic poet what FOUR WEDDINGS AND A FUNERAL did for W.H. Auden--put him, however briefly, on the best seller list, after a scene in which poor Deenie is forced to recite in class a section from Wordsworth's "Intimations of Immortality," and halfway through she realizes that its implications have hit home in a devastating way, and she breaks down, crying, in front of her teacher and fellow students. It is one of the great moments in screen acting, and should have won Natalie Wood the Oscar that year.

Phyllis Diller is also pretty good in the movie, but her part is so strange you wonder why it was even included.

This was one of my favorite movies 25 yrs ago, and it is still! Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty turn in excellent performances as young lovers growing up in the 20's who are torn apart due to the attitudes of the time, and of their parents. This movie has certain truths that trancend time, and, while there have been many coming of age romances, this one shines with the honesty that comes from that first love.
This movie is said to be one of the hardest performances for Natalie because the storyline was very similar to her own experience with first love. Also, pay particular attention to the bathtub scene. Fans of miss Wood are aware that she hid a wrist deformity by wearing cuff bracelets...they were her security blanket, so to speak. In the bath scene, the director made her remove the bracelet, and the feelings of vunerability that she felt really aided in her performance.
Natalie also had a life long fear of water, so the desperation in her eyes during the waterfall scene is very real!
Natalie and Warren have an absolutely unstoppable chemistry, and the end of the movie will leave you both sad and also thoughtful. The honesty of this movie is very refreshing because in real life, as we all know, there are seldom happily ever afters but we learn to "find strength in what remains behind."

The topic of young people reaching adulthood has seemingly been dealt with over the years in as many ways as there are young people reaching adulthood. In "Splendor In the Grass," however, the passion of the teen years contrasts more eloquently with the wistful practicality of young adulthood than any such story I've seen in quite some time.

This is the latest in a series of reviews I've written on older films that I'd not seen before but have been spurred to seek out because of their inclusion in the NY Times list of "1000 best movies ever." It's the film debut of Warren Beatty, who stars opposite Natalie Wood in a role that earned her one of her "Best Actress" Oscar nominations. The film won an Oscar for best screenplay.

Beatty (Bud) & Wood (Deannie) are teen lovers in southeastern Kansas in 1928. Bud is the rich favorite son of the town, heir to an oil fortune, captain of the football team, the All-American boy. Deannie is daughter in a much less upscale family, and her mama refers to Bud as "the catch of a lifetime" while Bud's daddy runs his life and won't hear any alternatives to the life he has chosen for his boy: Sow your wild oats, get a Yale education, then marry Deannie if you still want to, and take over the family oil business.

His boy just wants to be a rancher.

Some of the themes covered in "Splendor In the Grass" are well-worn by now, but even in a film nearly a half-century old they are mostly presented with a fresh take. Bud is a deeply honorable boy who feels compelled to follow his father's wishes, but simply cannot bear to be parted from Deannie; however, since his father won't let him marry Deannie before college, Bud feels it's best to stop seeing Deannie for awhile. The sexual tension up to that point in the film is remarkably palpable for a film of this era, showing again that modern Hollywood rings false when it thinks nudity and promiscuity are the only ways to get this feeling across.

The tragedies set in motion by Bud's father, both in his business decisions and in the way he strong-arms his family, permanently alter everyone in the film, with some lovely twists of fate along the way, before the characters reach a satisfactory and bittersweet resolution that leaves the viewer thinking, "Why, of course. I can identify with that." It's a happy ending, kind of, but one that leaves the future open-ended for a more happy ending down the road.

The dynamics of family have often been presented with more insight in the years since films like "Splendor In the Grass" helped shape the current consciousness of today's filmgoer, but at the time this was one of the stories that helped young people attain a voice in the modern world that they didn't used to have. It deserves a place along such other family conflict classics as "East of Eden" and "Cat On a Hot Tin Roof."

Both "Splendor in the Grass" and "West Side Story," both released in 1961, were the most influential and well-loved movies of my generation, the first of the post-World War II baby boomers. "Rebel Without a Cause", of course, was the most important movie for a slightly earlier generation, those teenagers growing up in the mid-1950's ultra-conservative Eisenhower era. Judging from the above, one could reasonably argue that Natalie Wood was our most influential actress, especially since she starred in all three films. (Frankly, Natalie never again had the opportunity or the parts to top what she had already achieved, despite such hits as "Gypsy" or the dated "Bob and Ted and Carol and Alice," but then, what other actress, no matter how talented, can you name who even came close to being a part of such milestone films?)

It's also true that teenagers of the early 1960s were as sexually repressed as the teenagers depicted in this movie, set in the late 1920s and early 1930s. There were the "good" girls who managed to stay virginal, the "bad" girls who didn't, and a third group, the girls who were clever or lucky enough to have it both ways -- keeping their reputations, if nothing else, intact.

Thus, the story of Deanie's frustrated love for Bud, hampered by the family and societal pressures that keep both of them from "going all the way," make this "Romeo and Juliet" tale one that spoke to an entire generation. Though nearly half a century has passed since this film's release, it still continues to be emotionally moving for teenagers and adults of today.

Based on a one-act play by William Inge, "Glory in the Flower," the author's expansion to a full-length screen version opened up the story and improved vastly upon the original source. By setting it in the Midwest pre-Depression era, Inge assured that even if sexual morality among teenagers became more lax, as it certainly did with the passing of years, the repressions depicted within the movie's timeframe are still valid. (William Inge even has an uncredited cameo role as a minister, Reverend Whitman.) Also valid are the movie's two other major premises -- first, parents, with the best intentions, still manage to screw up their children's lives (just as their parents did to them), and second, people are ultimately resilient, learn to pick up the pieces of their damaged lives, hopefully learn from their mistakes, and carry on. Thus, "Splendor in the Grass," meticulously directed by Elia Kazan, beautifully acted by Natalie Wood, Warren Beatty, with a superlative supporting cast, including the one-of-a-kind Zohra Lampert, Audrey Christie, Pat Hingle, Barbara Loden, Fred Stewart, Sandy Dennis, and Crystal Field, can never truly be dated.

theres this chick who gets wasted at her prom and gang raped by like the whole class or something.it was pretty thorough.she starts going all batty and her horrible mother ignores her and tells her to pretend nothings wrong lest the neighbors would think ill of them.back in 61 i guess people still cared about stuff like that.its better than any lifetime movie ive ever seen.there was a second place one with a pinball machine involved..........................its for a pretty mature audience.her parents treat her like an embarresment and a problem as opposed to a person.this is the worst way to go about helping a mentaly ill person.its very emotional.its a bit long.