In Splendor in the Grass (1961), young love is thwarted by societal standards and a meddling father, and the moral of the story might be that sexual repression is not good for the soul. Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty (in his first film) star as high school sweethearts “Deanie” Loomis and Bud Stamper in director Elia Kazan’s bittersweet love story set in 1928 Kansas. Days of learning and nights of passion consume them, but they dare not consummate their relationship sexually. Good girls don’t, and good boys won’t respect you if you do. Bud is a football and basketball star whose domineering father, Ace (Pat Hingle), has his son’s life planned out for him. He will attend Yale and then work for his family’s oil business. Bud’s family is rich, while Deanie’s dad is a grocer (an understated Fred Stewart) and her mother (a terrific Audrey Christie) a busybody. Deanie will go off to college and then, naturally, marriage.
Bud wants to wed Deanie right after high school and go to agricultural school, but Ace nixes that idea. He convinces him to go to Yale before getting married. He also suggests that there are “other types” of girls for what he needs. Bud is sexually frustrated and even tries to talk with the family doctor, who seems clueless to answer his questions. Bud decides not to see Deanie anymore to counter his feelings and takes up with Juanita (Jan Norris), who seems to be more willing to give him “what he needs.” Deanie is devastated and has a heartbreaking incident in class that reveals her mental state is precarious.
Deanie decides to go to a dance with one of Bud’s friends, Toots (Gary Lockwood). She cuts her hair and dresses more provocatively. Seeing Bud there with her friend Kay (Sandy Dennis), she tells him she misses him and tries to seduce him, but he rebuffs her, telling her she’s a “nice girl.” She takes off with Toots and ends up at a Lover’s Lane spot complete with waterfalls. Running away after fending off Toots’ advances (all while calling him Bud), a distraught Deanie winds up trying to go over the falls but is saved by some men. She is taken to the hospital, where a doctor recommends a mental institution stay.
While Deanie is institutionalized, Bud goes to Yale but is flunking out, which prompts a visit by Ace to the college dean. Bud tells the dean what he really wants to do (farming), but it’s clear that Bud’s father won’t allow that, despite the dean telling him that Bud shouldn’t be there. Ace says he’s taking Bud to New York for the weekend, and he’ll have him back on Monday to start fresh. In New York they go to a nightclub where famed hostess Texas Guinan (Phyllis Diller, making her movie debut) is performing, and Ace notices a chorus girl who looks like Deanie. He tells Bud she’s “the same damn thing” and “just as pretty” (as if people were just interchangeable) and sends her to Bud’s room, but he’s not interested. Meanwhile, the stock market is crashing (it’s 1929), leading a bankrupted Ace to commit suicide.
Deanie stays at the mental institution for two and a half years. While there she meets John, another patient, and they plan to marry. The first day she is home she is visited by her friends June and Hazel and asks them about Bud. They say they don’t know anything, but in one of the most poignant scenes in the movie her dad reveals to her where Bud lives. Her friends take her there and she sees him. He’s a farmer now, married to Angelina (Zohra Lampert), a waitress he met in New Haven, and already a father to son Bud Junior. The ending is a heartbreaker. Deanie asks Bud if he’s happy and he answers, “I don’t ask myself that question very often” and “What’s the point, you have to take what comes.” True, but devastating.
Natalie Wood was deservedly nominated for an Oscar for Best Actress, and the film won for Best Screenplay by playwright William Inge (Bus Stop, Picnic), who appears in the film as a preacher. I became a lifelong hater of actor Pat Hingle, so believable was he in his role. As Bud’s tarty sister Ginny, Barbara Loden (who would later marry director Kazan) has some nice moments, and Joanna Roos, who plays his mother, contributes some priceless looks.
Oh, and the film’s title? That’s courtesy of a poem Deannie is asked to comment on in class: Wordsworth’s Ode on Intimations of Immortality, which features the lines “The radiance, which was once so bright, is now forever taken from our sight, though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, or glory in the flower, we will grieve not but find strength in what remains behind.”