ViewGuide

Created Oct 02, 2010 03:33AM PST • Edited Jul 27, 2013 11:52PM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Good 3.0

   “Introducing Warren Beatty” reads the opening credits, reason enough to watch this overwrought high school movie. The legendary womanizer shot out of the gates a bona fide heartthrob – the richest boy in town, captain of the football team, and nice guy to boot. Natalie Wood matches him in to-die-for attractiveness and bests him in acting.

   Double-barreled star power notwithstanding, this isn’t a great movie, not even a great high school movie. Even allowing for how dated it is – set in the ‘20s, released in ‘61 – it’s still more caricature than genuine, the parents especially. The Academy thought differently half a century ago, awarding it an Oscar for Best Screenplay. Bully, if only it aged well.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   The role of Bud Stamper emblazoned young Warren Beatty as a leading man, kind of a shambler, yet so matinee idol handsome and apparently genuine that he naturally charmed the pants off girls. Having only recently turned down 10 football scholarships himself, he played to type as a high school football star.

   Natalie Wood – already the star of Rebel Without a Cause and The Searchers – travels a much greater emotional distance than her stolid beau. An all time screen queen, she sparkles as ‘Deanie’ Loomis, the girl driven mad by thwarted desire.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Really Great 4.5

7. Female Costars Good 3.0

8. Male Costars Very Good 3.5

10. Film

    Good 3.0

    Elia Kazan’s great films – Gentleman’s Agreement, A Streetcar Named Desire and On The Waterfront among them – were behind him when he directed Splendor in the Grass.

11. Direction Very Good 3.5

12. Play OK 2.5

    The abortive story of Ginny Stamper – Bud’s messed up older sister – never gets resolved, a significant flaw in the screenplay. More flaws? The bad parents – Deanie’s manipulative Mother and Bud’s demented Dad – are especially sketchy. Standard fare though that may be in high school movies (Rebel Without A Cause then, Kick Ass now), it’s an especially cheap storyteller’s shortcut here given the parents’ centrality to the story.

13. Music Good 3.0

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5
15. Content

16. Edge

    Tame 1.5

    Will they go all the way? Will they? Will they?

17. Sex Titillating 1.7

18. Violence Gentle 1.4

19. Rudeness Polite 1.3

21. Reality

    Glib 1.2

    The backdrop of the Great Crash of ’29 adds adult interest to the proceedings.

22. Circumstantial Glib 1.6

23. Biological Natural 1.0

24. Physical Natural 1.0