UPDATE 2:15 p.m. Thursday: Salina Post has been notified that all tickets for the showings of Picnic have been sold. If you want to watch the classic that was, in part, filmed in Salina, you can check out a DVD of Picnic from the Salina Public Library.
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The Smoky Hill Museum has announced a new date for the 1950s Film Series showing of Picnic.
The showing is now scheduled for Tuesday at the Salina Art Center Cinema, 150 South Santa Fe Avenue.
The Film Series, sponsored by Heritage Real Estate Advisors and the Ellsworth Independent-Reporter newspaper, features the 1956 Oscar-winning film Picnic, filmed largely in Salina and other Kansas communities. It stars Kim Novak, William Holden, and Rosalind Russell in the story of Hal, a handsome drifter who stirs up conflict and romance when he comes to town over Labor Day weekend.
Picnic will play on the big screen on Tuesday at 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. downtown at the Salina Art Center Cinema. Different vintage Looney Tunes cartoons will run before the feature at each screening. Admission is $6 for ages eight and up. Movie concessions will be for sale. All at-the-door donations and half of ticket proceeds will benefit the Friends of the Smoky Hill Museum and its educational programming.
For those not attending either screening, DVD copies of Picnic and related books and movies are available to check out from the Salina Public Library.
Three Picnic scenes were filmed in Salina, including one in front of a home on Country Club Road, currently owned by Greg and Marianne Lenkiewicz. The couple owns Picnic memorabilia that will be on display at the welcome table in the cinema lobby that day.
Cinema lovers, those looking for a fun, pre-Valentine’s outing, and admirers of Hollywood's Golden Age will enjoy Picnic for its themes of romance, yearning, and life-changing decisions. Kansas playwright William Inge wrote Picnic in 1953. It won a Tony, plus a Pulitzer Prize for Inge. Adapted as a film three years later, Picnic won two Oscars.
Picnic was Inge's third play and one of nine or 10 works he wrote that were adapted into major motion-picture or TV productions. Later, Inge won an Oscar for his original screenplay of Splendor in the Grass, starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood.
Tickets for Picnic are $6 at the door or can be ordered in advance at salinaartcenter.org/nowplaying. For more information, visit smokyhillmuseum.org, call 785-309-5776 or visit the Smoky Hill Museum Facebook page.