Splendor In The Grass

Starring: Natalie Wood & Warren Beatty Director: Elia Kazan

DVD Features:

Audio:

• Dolby Digital Mono - English
• Dolby Digital Mono - French

Additional Release Material:

• Trailers - 1. Original Theatrical Trailer

Interactive Features:

• Interactive Menus
• Scene Access

Major Awards:

Academy Awards - Best Original Screenplay (1961)

Description by OLDIES.com:

Deanie (Natalie Wood in an Oscar-nominated performance that marked a career turning point toward complex adult roles) is a teenager eager to do what's right in her 1920s Kansas town. But the emotions she shares with boyfriend Bud (Warren Beatty's screen debut) are too strong. Soon the conflict between respectable behavior and human desire will push Bud to physical collapse. And Deanie to madness.

Director Elia Kazan encouraged Pulitzer Prize winner William Inge (Bus Stop, Picnic) to turn a true story he heard during his Midwest youth into an Academy Award-winning script. The result, Splendor in the Grass, remains as poetic, penetrating and powerful today as it was two generations ago.

Product Description:

Two young lovers find their awakening sensuality in conflict with both their own moral values and those of the small town in which they live. This intense, tragic film marked the screen debut of Warren Beatty. Academy Award Nominations: 2, including Best Actress--Natalie Wood. Academy Awards: Best (Original) Story and Screenplay.

Plot Synopsis:

Set in rural Kansas, "Splendor in the Grass" tells the tragically romantic tale of teenagers Deanie and Bud who repress their desires because of their families' disapproval. Coming from radically different backgrounds -- one wealthy, the other staunchly puritanical -- they allow class differences to prevent any possible union. Their passions exist purely in their hearts and minds, but the couple never physically or socially express this forbidden love. Later in life, Deanie is institutionalized following a breakdown, and she eventually returns home to resolve her feelings about Bud.

Plot Keywords:

Coming Of Age | Drama | Erotic | Essential Cinema | Love Story | Recommended | Tear Jerker | Theatrical Release | Tragedy | Young Love

Production Notes:

• Film acting debuts for actor/director/producer Warren Beatty, and actresses Sandy Dennis and Phyllis Diller.
• In later years, director Elia Kazan remarked that, of all the Actors Studio graduates, Warren Beatty's skills have most surprised him.
• William Inge wrote this screenplay as a vehicle for Warren Beatty, who had acted in one of his stage plays.
• Playwright/screenwriter William Inge also appears in the film as the minister.
• In 1981, this film was remade as a TV movie starring Melissa Gilbert and featuring Michelle Pfeiffer and Ally Sheedy.
• Shot in Technicolor in upstate New York and Staten Island.
• Additional cast: Joanna Roos (Mrs. Stamper), Jan Norris (Juanita Howard), Crystal Field (Hazel), Marla Adams (June), Martine Bartlett (Miss Metcalf), Sean Garrison (Glenn).

Cast and Crew: