Splendor in the Grass
Warner Bros. | Release Date: October 10, 1961 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
74
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 10 Critic Reviews
Positive:
6
Mixed:
4
Negative:
0
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
Superb, vibrantly emotional drama. [27 Apr 2001, p.C1]
80
The New York TimesBosley Crowther
Miss Wood has a beauty and radiance that carry her through a role of violent passions and depressions with unsullied purity and strength. There is poetry in her performance, and her eyes in the final scene bespeak the moral significance and emotional fulfillment of this film. Read full review
80
SalonCharles Taylor
Like nobody else, Kazan succeeded in capturing the overheated, self-pitying dramatization so near and dear to the teenage heart. Read full review
75
LarsenOnFilmJosh Larsen
Splendor in the Grass may seem quaint, even silly. But anyone who’s thrown – or endured – a teenager’s temper tantrum will recognize the anger and confusion on the screen as genuine. In that sense, Splendor will never be out of touch. Read full review
75
Entertainment WeeklyLisa Schwarzbaum
With his ripe lips, flirty eyes, and pre-Calvin Klein-era androgynous appeal, the 24-year-old Warren is utterly believable as a boy who drives Natalie Wood plumb insane with sexual frustration in William Inge’s overheated melodrama. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineEric Henderson
Inge’s scenario unravels alarmingly once the two would-be lovers start to drift apart thanks to Deanie’s nervous breakdown and the simultaneous (almost psychically connected) market crash of 1929, but the first half of the film is a tour de force of deferred urges, contortion acts of awkward intimacy, and the thrill of adolescence. Read full review
60
TV Guide MagazineStaff (Not Credited)
Youth exploitation pictures were all the rage at the time, and while this is better than some in execution and intent, it's still exactly that. Read full review
60
EmpireAngie Errigo
Natalie Wood is stunning and the drama is full of passion but this suffers a little from 60s hollywood style. Read full review
50
VarietyStaff (Not Credited)
Elia Kazan's production of William Inge's original screenplay covers a forbidding chunk of ground with great care, compassion and cinematic flair. Yet there is something awkward about the picture's mechanical rhythm. There are missing links and blind alleys within the story. Too much time is spent focusing on characters of minor significance. Read full review
50
The New YorkerPauline Kael
The movie doesn't suggest that adolescents have a right to sexual experimentation -- it just attacks the corrupted grown-ups for their failure to value love above all else. It's the old corn, fermented in a new way.
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