I am sure that ninety per cent of my readers on here have seen, at least once, the 1961 fiilm, "Splendor In The Grass," which turns 60, this year. One's perceptions of what one sees over time, can change one's outllook on the film. When I first saw the film, as a teenager, I related to Deanie; the classroom scene, which I will try and include here, encapsulates how I felt about my own adolescence.
Mind that I say this is how I felt, not what I experienced.
Later, as an adult, when watching the film, I no longer demonized the parents, as I did in my teens. They were as misguided as their children, and trapped in the times they were living in. And I am sure, for all that we have progressed, the trajectory of the story would play out similarly today.
For those unfamiliar with this film, let me give you a cultural context.
Back in 1953, playwright William Inge wrote a one-act play called "Glory In The Flower." The title, like that for 'Splendor,' came from Wordworth's poem "Ode On Intimations Of Immortality." In this short play, appear two characters, named Jackie, and Bus Riley. Inge would later write a play about him called "Bus Riley's Back In Town." In "Glory,' he is back, too, having left town because he impregnated his underaged girlfriend, Jackie, resulting in her having to have an abortion. This play is set in the Paradise Bar. Since Inge is the author, the location has to be somewhere in Kansas.
Bus is a failed movie star, not unlike Chance Wayne, in Tennessee Williams' "Sweet Bird Of Youth." Jackie is a spinster piano teacher. They meet in the bar and have a sort of reunion, though they are years beyond youth. Those who know "Splendor In The Grass" consider these the foreshaows of Bud and Deanie from "Splendor In The Grass." So, some consider this an answer to the question I posed, but I do not think so.
Now, Bus Riley was written about in a play called "Bus Riley's Back In Town." It was first presented at Penn State University in 1958, and a movie was made of it in 1965, starring Michael Parks, Ann-Margret, and, as Judy, Janet Margolin. Judy is the Deanie of the piece, losing her home and her mother in a fire. Bus, a failed actor, working as a mechanic, which he feels is beneath him, is drawn to Judy, but is enticed by the more seductive and manipulative Laurel, played of course, by Ann-Margret. Living with his mother and sisters, Bus ditches Laurel for Judy, and begins a contented life. Here, the characters of Bud, Deanie, and Ginny Stamper (Bud's sister) are foreshadowed.
Finally, it all came together, with "Splendor In The Grass." While Inge and Elia Kazan were working on his play, "The Dark At The Top Of The Stairs," Inge told the director a story about two people he knew while growing up in Kansas. I have not been able to find out what exactly Inge told Kazan, or who these actual people were, but this is how "Splendor In The Grass" emerged.
For the uninitated, let me bring you up to date--
"Splendor In The Grass" is set in Kansas, in 1928, just before the Great Depression, which will become important, later. High school seniors Bud and Deanie (Warren Beatty and Natallie Wood) are their school's "Golden Couple." Their parents have their own goals and expectations for both--but are they right? Bud's father (Pat Hingle) wants his son to take over the oil business he wants to leave him, after he graduates from Yale. But Bud, good looking, scion of the town's wealthiest family, is a dumb jock, who wants only to be a farmer on his father's farmland.
Deanie's mother is the feminine counterpart of Bud's father. She would love Deanie to score a match with the town's richest family, but browbeats her continuouly about how sexual their relationship is or is not getting, to the point of infantalizing her.
As if this is not enough trouble, along comes Bud's sister, Ginny (Barbara Loden, in a brilliant performance) newly arrived from Chcago, after having a marriage annulled, and an abortion. Ginny hates the town, and its conventions, warns Bud not to conform. But Bud lacks Ginny's gumption, which is too bad for him, and his father; Ginny, properly guided, would have been better to have run the business.
Things culminate on New Year's Eve, as things segue into 1929. Deanie and Bud declare their love, but, after witnessing his sister being gang raped that night, Bud decides to cut off ties with Deanie, which she does not understand, and Bud cannot articulate. As a result, Bud wanders off with town tramp Juanita Howard (Jan Morris), pushing himself to physical exhaustion and a bout with penumonia. Deanie, tragically, seeks into a deep depression, culminating in a nervous bereakdown, an attempted suicide, and incarcertaion in a mental institution in Wichita, a standin for the Payne Whitney clinic, where Inge actually did some time, himself.
Two and a half years past; it is 1931. Bud has flunked out of Yale, his father loses everything in the stockmarket crash and committs suicide, while his mother is passed among family members, the quintessential poor relation.
Meanwhile, Bud has married a working class girl he met in New Haven, Angelina, played by Zohra Lampert. They have a boy, Bud, Jr, and another child on the way. Home from her incarceration, Deanie goes to see Bud, meets his family, and both Deanie and Angelina seem to size each other up; Deanie realizes that Bud has married down, Angelina, that somehow Deanie will always be the love of her husband's life.
That's it, in a nutshell.
OK. Here is what we know about Deanie. She is to marry a man named John , a young doctor back in Cincinattti, whom she met in the hospital. Her mother is not a bit happy about where she met this guy, or that she will be living in Cincinatti. And she is worried that the hospital told Deanie to blame her.
By the end, more is known about Bud, than Deanie. So, to my reades, especially the girls, out there, I would like to know--
Was Deanie's marriage a happy one?
Did she have children? If so, was she careful not to raise them the way her mother raised her? If no children, was it because of her mother?
Did Deanie go off the rails, again?
What kind of life could she have lived, having been through so much, when young?
Let me know what you think, girls. I am curious to hear!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
2 comments:
As a mom and grandma, and wife, and daughter, and mother in law, I so relate to the frustrations of, wanting everyone to get along, watching folks who claim to be Christians, behave badly, year after year, decade after decade.
I like to say, Christian or not, religious or not, is it really that hard to just act like a a half decent human being??
Victoria,
I ask myself that more and more
during this time. I fear going
into the ciyt more than I ever
have. With the way people act,
one is never sure who will
lash out, and when! I consider
it lucky when I make it back
to Bay Ridge, though now I would
never walk it after dark. Yet there
once was a time when I would.
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