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Splendor in the Grass (1961)

Set in 1928, during the Roaring Twenties, Splendor in the Grass (directed by Elia Kazan) tells the story about a small town love that gets lost in the craziness of the times.

Wilma Dean "Deanie" Loomis (Natalie Wood) and Bud Stamper (Warren Beatty in his first movie role) are high-school sweethearts in their small Kansas town. She is the sweet, beautiful, virginal type and he is the handsome school jock. They are madly in love, but Bud is controlled by his father who wants him to play college football, and Deanie by her mother who wants her to remain pure at all costs. Bud truly wants to marry Deanie but he is told by his father that his football comes first and there are always "two kinds of girl." Bud soon finds himself in the arms of the school flapper and this sets off a chain of events that tests both their love and their sanity.

This is the story of the two sets of conflicting morals in the 1920s, of the virgin vs. the slut, of doing what your parents say vs. being your own person, of crazy love vs. duty. This is what happens when love is placed in other's hands, when love is subject to fate and one can only dream of the days of "splendor in the grass."

Written by: V. Alexandra de F. Szoenyi

Reviewers Rating: 8.5
Reader's Rating: 8.60
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