All legendary film careers must start somewhere. For Warren Beatty’s cinematic debut, we go to 1961’s Splendor in the Grass.

Set in a small Kansas town circa the late 1920s, high school seniors Bud Stamper (Beatty) and Deanie Loomis (Natalie Wood) fall in love with each other. Despite their throbbing biological urges, they resist the temptation to interact romantically beyond kissing.

Those sexual factors weigh on the relationship, as do expectations from various family members. Bud and Deanie struggle to maintain their relationship in the midst of these issues.

Always a broad and theatrical filmmaker, director Elia Kazan takes the themes of Grass to extremes. Essentially we get a movie that looks at how social judgments can damage – or even ruin – young lives.

This manifests partly via the scenes with Bud’s older sister Ginny (Barbara Loden). More liberated than public mores prefer, she gets painted as a “loose woman” and that leads her to much shame and embarrassment.

More frequently, though, Grass shows how social pressures weigh on Bud and Deanie. While she clearly wants to Go All the Way – and Bud semi-pressures her to do so – Deanie can’t for fear that she’ll lose her “good girl” status. Bud also worries that if they have sex, Deanie will wind up an outcast ala Ginny.

This leads to a variety of tensions – sexual and otherwise – as Deanie and Bud negotiate these domains. Bud finds himself pressured to get his rocks off with anyone he can find, while Deanie literally goes insane due to her frustrations.

Subtle Kazan ain’t, but it seems clear he didn’t intend audiences to view Grass in a literal manner. Hey, I was a sexually frustrated teen once too but I didn’t veer into insanity because I couldn’t get no satisfaction.

Kazan’s approach works to a degree, though the film leans a bit silly as it goes. Kazan needs to up the melodramatic ante along the way, so the movie goes to unbelievable extremes.

Despite that flaw, Grass packs a decent punch, mainly due to the ways it impugns social hypocrisy. With less judgment all around Bud and Deanie, we could see a happier progression to their relationship.

But since society frowned on pre-marital sex, the bottom drops out for them. Again, Kazan doesn’t pursue this theme in the most realistic way, but he does manage to make the result entertaining enough.

Beatty and Wood certainly create an attractive couple, and they mesh well enough together. Given the movie’s tone, both overact a good chunk of the time, but their performances suit the director’s goals.

Ultimately, I think Grass becomes too overwrought to turn into a great film. However, it manages to give us something provocative and mostly engaging, even with all the over the top melodrama.

Splendor in the Grass appears in an aspect ratio of 1.85:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This turned into a satisfying image.

Sharpness worked nicely. A couple of shots demonstrated mild softness, but those remained minor and infrequent, so the majority of the flick boasted solid delineation

I saw no issues with jagged edges or shimmering, and edge haloes stayed absent. The image also failed to display any print flaws.

Grass went with a largely natural palette that held up well over the years. The hues looked full and rich.

Blacks came across as deep and tight, while low-light shots demonstrated nice clarity and dimensionality. All of this added up to a pretty strong presentation.

For its era, the movie’s DTS-HD MA monaural soundtrack worked fine, and dialogue sounded clear and acceptably natural. In a manner typical for the era, speech seemed a little thin at times, but I detected no concerns related to intelligibility or edginess.

Effects were also clear and decently realistic, and they lacked problems related to distortion. Music seemed to be similarly clean and bright.

No issues with source noise manifested. Overall, the soundtrack to Grass served the movie in a more than adequate manner.

In addition to the film’s trailer, the disc includes a documentary entitled A Director’s Journey. Created in 1994, this one-hour, 15-minute, 26-second production offers narration from actor Eli Wallach and comments from director Elia Kazan.

“Journey” traces Kazan’s path to the stage and how those experiences affected him, his desire to work in films and his move in that direction. We also learn about the movies he directed and his thoughts about many of them.

The lack of participants other than Kazan surprises me, but I find this to be a pleasing and satisfying choice. The decision allows this to become an autobiographical piece, and I like the lack of fawning praise that usually comes with the comments of others.

Granted, this means we also lose a certain sense of perspective, but Kazan’s self-analysis more than compensates. The only minor disappointment comes from the way “Journey” glosses over Kazan’s “naming names” period.

The program doesn’t ignore this major aspect of Kazan’s life and legacy, but it zips through it quickly and doesn’t challenge anything. One can argue that “Journey” doesn’t need to deal with Kazan’s anti-Communist testimony since the show focuses on his career, but I think his actions affected his work and need to be discussed.

However, I understand that Kazan was always reluctant to go into this part of his life, so the filmmakers may not have had much choice other than to skip it. The lack of depth in this area creates a minor weakness for “Journey”, but not a fatal flaw. Instead, it presents a worthwhile examination of the director’s career.

Despite an awfully melodramatic tone, Splendor in the Grass turns into a mostly effective piece of commentary. The film uses an exaggerated vibe to frame social judgment and largely works despite its over the top elements. The Blu-ray boasts solid visuals, acceptable audio and an interesting documentary. Nothing here turns Grass into a classic but it still merits a look.