Picnic: Directed by Joshua Logan. With William Holden, Kim Novak, Betty Field, Susan Strasberg. Emotions are ignited among the complacent townsfolk when a handsome drifter arrives in a small Kansas community on the morning of the Labor Day picnic.. I'm doing research on the filming of the 1955 movie "Picnic", and will be travelling to the cities of Hutchinson, Halstead, Nickerson,
Picnic (1955) - The house where Rosemary, the schoolteacher, lived with Flo Owens and her family was located in Nickerson, Kansas, and was actually across the street from Reno Community High, where Rosemary taught school. Location shooting wrapped in nearby Sterling, Kansas, where the lake and bathhouse scenes were filmed. The movie's Labor Day festivities called for Sterling Lake to be filled.. A local 70-year-old "spinster" saw her film debut canceled when she broke both legs and several ribs during a fall down an embankment. Filming was interrupted almost daily by hailstorms and "wailing" tornado warnings. The actual picnic was on a muddy fairground at Halstead, Kansas. Cast and crew were "half-consumed" by "carnivorous" bugs.