Douglas Sirk’s picnic episode is a failed attempt by Marylee Hadley to renew her romantic feelings for Mitch Wayne. Mitch is unresponsive. Mitch is friendly, but that’s all. He’s not eager for the picnic and is dressed casually for work. While Marylee spreads a cloth, she says. “I brought everything but rain and ants, “ she says, “Okay, correction, rain.”
Marylee choses the picnic ground because it’s where she and Mitch played and picnicked when they were teenagers. She remembers that once, she asked Mitch if he loved her. He didn’t then, and he doesn’t now. A constant reminder of her unrequited love is the heart she carved on a tree (still there) with the initials MH and MW.
See Douglas Sirk. Written on the Wind (1956). The screenplay by George Zuckerman is based on Robert Wilder’s 1946 novel, which does not have a picnic episode. Sirk’s picnic is his creation for the film adaptation. Dorothy Malone as Marylee Hadley and Rock Hudson as Mitch Wayne