Walk on the Wild Side
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Movie Reviews of Walk on the Wild Side
Movie Review: As cool as the cover art..
Summary: 5 Stars
This is an excellent movie. I can't beleive all the scroogy reviews on this site. This film is a little known gem with a good story, good acting and great cinematography. It's as entertaining as the cover art on the dvd is cool. If you like that, you'll probably like the movie. Vintage 1962. Don't come in expecting the latest Hollywood blockbuster, but if you're in the mood for a jazzy riff of a movie, with cool 60s black n white cinematography, some gorgeous ladies and an earnest hero - look no further. Jane Fonda is a stone cold fox in this film - hard to beleive, but 100% accurate. This movie is in my list of favorites and one of the best films I've seen from this time period. Period.Movie Review: LIKE FINE WINE: IT GETS BETTER WITH AGE
Summary: 5 Stars
It was a rainy night at the Paramount Theater in Provo Utah 47 years ago when I first saw this flick. Back then, aside from the dynamite Elmer Bernstein score, I found it vague and mostly unfathomable. But I'm older and hopefully wiser now, and life has taught me some lessons. WALK ON THE WILD SIDE is razor sharp and focused. The black-cat-on-the-prowl opening and closing credit sequences are electrifying. And the Bernstein score (with interspersed vocals by Brook Benton) is - to THESE ears - even more powerful and affecting dynamite now than that which exploded into my consciousness years past, as in "somewhere in the used-to-be".Movie Review: City Full Of Lost Girls
Summary: 4 Stars
Elmer Bernstein's beautiful Jazz theme and Saul Bass' sensuously lyric opening credits set the tone for this tale of Dove Linkhorn and his search for his lost love Hallie Gerard through the tough underbelly of 1930's New Orleans. These opening shots of a back cat prowling through an alley are justifiably considered one of the best credit sequences ever filmed. Cinematically sublime and well worth the viewing.
What follows is a high melodrama set in a brothel called the Doll House, where Dove, Hallie, Kitty and Madame Jo Courtney meet their various tragic ends. As directed by once black listed director Edward Dmytryk "Walk on the Wild Side" is a full-blown old style drama that is chock full of finely tuned old style performances.
Cast against character Laurence Harvey as Dove tackles his roll as a love sick Texas cowboy with more than his usual cool approach. He manages a plausible Texas accent and turns Dove into a man of fire and misguided passion. He makes it believable that he is the kind of guy that the women he meets with the exception of Barbara Stanwyck find it hard to resist. This is no mean feat for the thin aristocratic British actor.
French beauty Capucine seems almost too refined at first to play Hallie the artistic and wounded object of Dove's affection. But as the film progresses she delivers just the right blend of tragedy and pathos of a girl lost in the world of prostitution.
The accomplished Anne Baxter makes her presence known as Teresina Vidaverri the Mexican café owner who helps Dove and along the way also falls for him. Miscast in an age when Hollywood had most major roles of Latinos played by non-Latinos she is tough, tender and manages to be believable in the role.
Jane Fonda appears as the spurned bad girl Kitty. She walks the wild side with abandon and shows her range as an actress in this, one of her early rolls. Sexy, slinky and utterly rotten her Kitty is pure fun as in her desperation for Dove's affections carries the turn of events for him and Hallie to damnation and loss.
When Barbara Stanwyck comes on the screen she steals the picture out from under all concerned as Jo the lesbian Madame who looses her cool over her unrequited passion for Hallie. It is a classic Stanwyck performance full of all the power and history of this great American star. In her speech to Hallie about what love is she shines as she reveals her own tragic past. This was the first American film to show a lesbian on the screen and Stanwyck presents us with a real woman full of strengths and flaws that is much more than one would expect from a gay character in mainstream Hollywood of 1962.
Joseph MacDonald captures all the heat and steam of New Orleans with his shimmering black and white cinematography. The out of time early 60's costumes by Charles La Maire are stunning in their range from rags to high class call girl glamour. Bernstein's wonderful score is one of his best and adds the right touch of jazzy glitz to the drama.
"Walk on the Wild Side" is one hell of a ride and well worth the admission price to the Doll House.
Movie Review: The Original "Pulp Fiction"!
Summary: 4 Stars
I think Quentin Terintino should remake this tale of desperate behavior in the depression era. Jane Fonda---at the peak of her youthful beauty--plays an alleycat that hitches a ride from Texas to New Orleans with good-guy "Dove" but is unable to seduce him. Dove, you see, is on a quest to find Hallie, his lost love who is rumored to be in the city.
When Jane and Dove fall off the back of their haywagon outside the city, they first stop at a roadside diner run by none other than Anne Baxter as a Mexicana hash-slinger, whom Janes rips off with her "your chili almost killed me and I'm going to sue you unless this meal is free" scam. Jane grabs Anne's rosary on the way out just for good measure!
Unbeknownst to Dove, Hallie has gone wayward and become a prostitute under the watchful (and jealous) tutelage of Barbara Stanwyk as the butch Madame "Jo". (Indeed, one of the funniest lines of dialogue is when a john refers to Stanwyk as "that Joe guy"!) When Dove finally finds Hallie working at the brothel, the fireworks really begin, as Jane and Anne pursue Dove , while Dove and Stanwyk pursue Hallie. (yes, by this point, Jane has been picked up for vagrancy, "rescued" by Jo and is working at the brothel as well). Think "A Midsummer Nights Dream", only in depression era New Orleans, and with prostitutes and lesbians!
Stanwyk is predictably vivid as the bisexual and ultimately psychotic madame bored with her legless husband (don't ask) and obsessed with Hallie. Supermodel Capucine plays Halle with a Garbo-esque world-weariness so metropolitan, exotic and frigid that it's hard to figure what she could ever have had in common with farm-boy Dove in the first place. This pairing really stretches the limits of believability; they make about as much sense together as, say, Marlene Dietrich and Andy Griffith! But the weirdness of their pairing doesn't hurt "Wild Side" one bit. The movie is already so bizarre that further strangeness cannot possibly hinder it!
In fact, this sordid and pulpy melodrama manages to be both depressing and great fun! it's stylish too- with the jazzy soundtrack and cool opening montage featuring a black cat (Jane?) slinking along city streets. The cover artwork is a bit misleading however. Jane Fonda plays only a secondary role in this, and the deceptively "Breakfast at Tiffany's" look she sports in the photo is not emblematic of this film's atmosphere at all. It's in slightly grimy black and white and for most of the picture, Jane has a slightly bedraggled look about her. She is only "dolled up" for one scene.
A pulp-fictiony, "cautionary" tale about obsession and all its guises-- Sex, Love & Loneliness . Tenessee Williams Lite. Quentin, are you reading this?
Movie Review: Guilty pleasure!
Summary: 4 Stars
"A Walk on the Wild Side" is a well made, intriguing soap opera set in sultry, steamy New Orleans. When the audience sees the opening credit sequence in which a sensuous black cat is photographed in closeup as it prowls along sidewalks and alleys of the Big Easy, viewers are hooked. This startling and ingenious introduction as well as the juicy end credit sequence were conceived by the brilliantly inventive graphic artist Saul Bass. The rather sordid plot revolves around a good-looking Texas drifter named Dove, superbly underplayed by Laurence Harvey, who hitchhikes his way to New Orleans in search of his long lost love, Hallie. Hallie is portrayed by the elegant and ravishing Capucine. (Capucine bears an uncanny resemblance to both Sophia Loren and Audrey Hepburn. No wonder everyone was crazy about her!) Enroute to the Big Easy, Dove encounters a runaway juvenile delinquent, Kitty, performed with sass and vigor by Jane Fonda. She tags along with Dove until he leaves her behind after he discovers that she is a thief and a liar.
Following an anonymous tip, Dove locates Hallie who is living and working in a high-class brothel. At first he does not realize that she has followed a primrose path. When he does find out, he is understandably shocked. Eventually he forgives her and proposes marriage. Complications and tragedy follow.
The cast of " A Walk on the Wild Side" are uniformly excellent. Barbara Stanwyck is especially memorable. She gives a fearless, ferocious performance as the calculating, possessive lesbian madam, Jo, who is hopelessly infatuated with Hallie. Other palatable ingredients in this movie: the solid direction by Edward Dmytryk; the crisp, evocative black and white photography of Joe MacDonald; and the bold, brash jazz score composed by the great Elmer Bernstein.
No it's not Shakespeare, but "A Walk on the Wild Side" is a very watchable, well-crafted, guilty pleasure.