An Oscar-winning movie that was filmed in part in Salina will be featured during the Smoky Hill Museum's 1950s film series.
In conjunction with a two-part 1950s exhibit at the museum, the 1956 Oscar-winning motion picture Picnic, will be shown at 8 p.m. March 19 and 3 p.m. March 20 in the Salina Art Cinema, 150 South Santa Fe Avenue.
Admission is $6 for ages eight and up. Tickets may be purchased at the door or can be ordered online in advance at salinaartcenter.org/nowplaying. Concessions snacks will be for sale. Donations and a portion of ticket proceeds will benefit the Friends of the Smoky Hill Museum, according to information from the museum.
Kansas playwright William Inge wrote the play Picnic in 1953, winning a Tony and a Pulitzer Prize. Newcomer Paul Newman was among the original stage-cast members. Adapted as a film three years later, Picnic won two Oscars and starred William Holden, Kim Novak, and Rosalind Russell.
Three of the movie's scenes were filmed in Salina, including one in front of a home on Country Club Road currently owned by Greg and Marianne Lenkiewicz along with Betsy Scholten, who will do an informal Q&A with film-goers about 20 minutes before each screening in the theatre, the museum information noted. Vintage Looney Tunes cartoons will be shown before the film each day.
Cinema lovers, history buffs and admirers of Hollywood's '40s-'50s Golden Age will enjoy Picnic for its contemporary themes of romance, yearning, and life-altering decisions. Picnic was Inge's third play and one of a number he wrote that were adapted as motion picture or TV productions.
Inge won an Oscar for his original screenplay of Splendor In The Grass, filmed in 1961 and starring Warren Beatty and Natalie Wood. Since 1983, the William Inge Film Festival, set in his hometown of Independence, Kan., has celebrated emerging and veteran playwrights and stage talent while honoring Inge as an influential native son.