Splendor in the Grass is a classic Hollywood melodrama featuring Natalie Wood and Warren Beatty (in his first film). The tone of this piece begins with a sweetness that is too hard to ignore in terms of a silver screen romance – something difficult to believe until a third of the way through the movie when French New Wave techniques are mashed up with method acting and an incredible screenplay that sends the characters hurtling dangerously toward a reality of the consequences of repression that “twists people in monstrous, dysfunctional directions” (Martin). This ultimately makes the audience perceive motion picture cliches that never arrive – as we kept guessing the next beat in more and more ridiculous soap opera tropes, Inge’s screenplay begged us to ignore them with each new, more believable, more realistic twist. Ultimately, Inge constructed an unexpectedly great film for the ages, and the performances kept up with it as it neared its tragic and acceptable conclusions.
I really enjoyed this, and I was quite surprised as the film progressed. Where at the beginning I expected the same things to happen that I have seen countless other times in film, it became clear as the horrors of the character’s choices unfolded that this was going in a direction that stripped it of the Hollywood tropes and led me down a road that delivered the audience to a conclusion structured in deep realism. This striking compromise seems revolutionary for the era, and to witness its American gestation in this film was splendid.
In many ways, with the exception of the middle of the film, this movie was a lot like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg – a favorite of mine that is also on the list. I was surprised to find that Cherbourg was made after Splendor; after watching this it felt like I had wished it was made first since the themes and structure are so similar. Regardless, it was a pleasure to see how Inge unfolded these realistic elements to balance the audience’s expectations with reality. A well written, well-performed script that can easily be considered an American classic.
Garrett Zecker 
I’m late to reading this but I agree that this takes the audience in unexpected directions, particularly those unfamiliar with Inge’s work, a man who sought darkness under the veneer of what seemed cozy lives.
Beatty is very good and is bursting with star magnetism. For his first film he’s a natural. I wonder how his sometime halting tentative style came across at the time, all these years later it’s so clearly his way of performing but at the time it might have come across as nervousness or inexperience.
Good though he and the rest of the cast is the film belongs to Natalie Wood and she’s astonishingly raw in it. She fought hard for the role, even submitting to playing a part that she thought was junk-“the girl” role in Cash McCall in order to get the part and she’s delves deep into Deanie’s troubled interior. I love her but she could be a spotty actress at times but when she connected to a role she was capable of turning in extraordinary work. The bathtub scene is so unnerving and then it’s followed by the heartbreaking dance disaster and you can’t help but think “How much further down can this poor girl spiral?” and she just keeps on falling apart but then her work at the end is so focused and delicate. It’s incomparable work and she should have won the Oscar this year.
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