Picnic [WS/P&S] [DVD] [1955]

An egocentric and boastful, drifter blows into town just before the Labor Day Picnic to visit an old fraternity buddy, son of the richest man in town. When the drifter meets up with the town beauty queen, all trouble arises as she is also his buddy's girlfriend. Starring Arthur O'Connell, Cliff Robertson, Kim Novak, Rosalind Russell, Strasberg, William Holden. (1955) Running time: 113 minutes. Languages: English/SUB: English, Chinese, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai.

This Columbia DVD release of Picnic proves that William Holden and Kim Novak's provocative dance to "Moonglow" still sizzles more than anything that Zalman King has ever come up with. Star William Holden was reportedly so embarrassed about doing the movie's justly famous dance sequence that he had to get rip-roaring drunk just to get up the courage to film it. Of course, Holden and Novak's dance of seduction is only one great sequence in one of the key movies of the 1950s. While there aren't really any meaningful DVD extras here (unless you count trailers, subtitles, vintage advertising), this release restores the look of the original Cinemascope aspect ratio in a pristine anamorphic widescreen transfer and adds a superb Dolby Digital 2.0 audio track. The DVD greatly benefits from a mid-'90s film restoration project that saw Picnic back on the big screen in art houses across the country. Cinematographer James Wong Howe is rightly considered one of the greatest Hollywood cameramen and this DVD shows off his beautiful Technicolor work on Picnic. Interviews with surviving cast members like Kim Novak and Cliff Robertson about the making of the film would have been nice, but lack of supplemental features aside, this is still a fine DVD presentation.