Walk on the Wild Side

This film is strangely reminiscent of Pre-Code Barbara Stanwyck pictures like 'Baby Face' or 'Women They Talk About.' But, what makes the film so much fun is its marvelously fractured casting. It's rumored that the film owes its existence to Capucine. Charles Feldman, the talent agent, mounted the production to showcase his protégée and (some say) girlfriend. She's quite a beauty, but what makes her performance so remarkable is that she's totally oblivious to the fact that she doesn't belong in this film.

Laurence Harvey has the Southern accent down. And, as for Jane Fonda, this was the one break in her endless string of coy sex kitten roles from the sixties where she proves she can act. Some say she overdoes it, but I think she provides the real spice in this film.

In the midst of this batch of newcomers hobbled together from around the world (although they're all playing indigenous Southerners) are two pros trained in the old Hollywood studios. This is hardly a high point for Barbara Stanwyck. But, she proves that you can put her down anywhere - in a screwball comedy, a tearjerker, a hard-boiled film noir, or a TV western - and she can hold her own.

Anne Baxter acquits herself well in the thankless task of playing a humble Mexican. Probably less well known for her accomplishments than Stanwyck, she won an Oscar for playing one of the greatest dramatic arcs given to an actress in the forties in "The Razor's Edge." These two pros give some dignity to a film that easily could have degenerated in to laughable kitsch.

This film is notorious for its overt portrayal of a lesbian character. But, it actually has a more interesting gay connection. Fonda, against the prohibition of director Edward Dymyrik, was secretly being coached in her dressing room by her 'secretary' and live-in boyfriend Andreas Voutsinas. Six years later, he would set a new benchmark for outrageous mincing queens as Carmen Ghia in Mel Brooks' "The Producers."

This film has a dynamite opening. A real life black cat prowls around a maze of pipes and fences, as Elmer Bernstein's jazzy musical score blares out the film's title song, a haunting invocation to low life everywhere.

Throughout, both the music and the B&W cinematography evoke a noirish, downbeat mood totally in sync with the film's theme of embittered sleaze. Although set in the 1930's, the film looks and sounds more like something from the hip, "beat" generation of the 1950's. And I'm comfortable with that.

What I'm not comfortable with is the casting and the screenplay. Lithuanian born Laurence Harvey is totally not convincing as a Texas tramp. French born Capucine, looking like she just walked in from the set of "La Dolce Vita", seems lost in the role of a Southern belle. A somewhat inexperienced Jane Fonda overacts the role of Kitty Twist. And American Anne Baxter, looking more like Suzanne Pleshette than Anne Baxter, plays a Mexican senorita, with the help of a big wig. Among the major roles, the only credible cast member is Barbara Stanwyck, as the bossy owner of the Doll House, your typical red light house of prostitution.

The film's red light title is a big tease. It advertises brothel life, but the screenplay delivers only boredom and preachy morality. But in 1962 the moralistic Hays Code still exerted influence on what Hollywood could say and show. The result here is a yellow light plot that merely hints at sleaze.

Forty years after its release, "Walk On The Wild Side" does have entertainment value, both as a curious period piece, and as a sudsy soap opera with some campy dialogue, helped along by the always engaging Barbara Stanwyck.

Laurence Harvey is terrific as a penniless Texas cowboy who hitches his way to New Orleans in the 1930s in search of a lost summer love, a French artist who--unbeknownst to him--is now working at a bordello; Barbara Stanwyck is the madame at the Doll House, married to a crippled tough but with heavy lesbian leanings towards Capucine, the girl who broke Harvey's heart; Jane Fonda is pretty good as a teen tramp who also ends up working for Stanwyck, and Anne Baxter is a proprietress of a diner who takes Harvey in. Though based on a novel by Nelson Algren, this screenplay sometimes plays like sub-Tennessee Williams, with the rather laughable story-conceit that New Orleans was just another small town in the '30s (walk up the street and you've seen it all!). Capucine, haughty and breathless, matches up well with Harvey, and her run-ins with benefactor Stanwyck are heated, but those hoping for some crackling gay subtext will be disappointed (Barbara's inclinations aren't hypothetical, but she's hardly out of the closet). There are some good, fruity lines of tough-talking dialogue and also some sentimental moments with surprising resonance (as when Baxter says, "Why can't two people care about each other...without the world making it dirty?"). Of course it's Hollywood-ized, with a camp score by Elmer Bernstein and Joanna Moore in the clichéd role of the good-hearted tootsie who gets taken for granted. But Fonda has a great scene near the end when she helps Capucine out of a jam, and Harvey makes a big impression on the audience without overstating his sleek handsomeness. *** from ****

With the Code still in place we could only hint about Barbara Stanwyck's alternative sexuality. Yet those are screaming hints about why Barbara is so obsessed with keeping Capucine at her bordello.

Walk on the Wild Side is the kind of delicious trash that Hollywood loves to give us in the movie going public. Laurence Harvey who went from that noblest of Texan founders, William Barrett Travis in The Alamo to poor white trash lovesick Dove Linkhorn who's on his way to New Orleans to get his girl to marry him and live the life of a poor dirt farmer back in Texas. Traveling on the bum, he meets Jane Fonda, a teenager on the road as well.

What I can't figure out is that Capucine who is Harvey's intended is a girl with artistic skills. She's a sculptress as well as a temptress and why she would want to waste her time on Harvey is beyond me. Even if she finds herself as Stanwyck's favorite at the bordello which is where she wound up, you've got to believe she would have married one of the well to do clients. It's happened before.

Other reviewers who've read the original book by Nelson Algren mention that Harvey's character is not much more than a teenager himself. Clearly then Harvey is too old for the part. But as presented possibly Monty Clift or Paul Newman could have made more of the role. My guess is that Director Edward Dmytryk wanted a clearer contrast in age between Jane Fonda and Laurence Harvey because part of the story involves Harvey being framed for a Mann Act violation in transporting the minor Fonda.

That is Anne Baxter with a very phony Latino accent as the truck stop owner who takes in Harvey and Fonda from the road and develops a thing for Harvey herself. That's a more serious error in casting. Why didn't Columbia try to get Katy Jurado for the part?

Acting honors in this go to Barbara Stanwyck as Jo, the lesbian madam of the house whose Jones for Capucine drive this whole film. Her portrayal in Walk on the Wild Side is another crack in the once omnipotent Code.

You've got to love Elmer Bernstein's jazz based score with the title tune that got Walk on the Wild Side it's only Academy Award nomination. It really does drive the pace of the film and underscores the emotions of all involved.

For those who like their films deliciously trashy this is definitely your kind of movie.

This sleazy bit of melodrama, loosely based on a racy Nelson Algren book, is now dated kitsch; but can be enjoyed for what it is, thanks to the Hollywood team that put it all together. It's trashy intentions and heavyhanded delivery work in it's favor nowadays, so the brilliant Columbia DVD transfer is well worth checking out. The highlight of the movie is the Elmer Bernstein score; a masterwork with a life all it's own. The cast is a hoot: Barbara Stanwyck standing out as a lesbian brothel owner, a stiff dyke, hardly correct as a New Orleans Madame; Jane Fonda is a pouty, sultry slut, overdoing her overaged, nubile nymphette act; Laurence Harvey stretches all credibility as the good-boy Texas heartthrob searching for his lost love; an utterly miscast Capucine, playing an artsy, elegant whore-with-a-heart-of-gold; and Anne Baxter is quite humorous as a Mexican cafe owner. It's hard not to enjoy a movie with lead characters whose names are Dove and Kitty Twist, and a title song performed by Brook Benton with lyrics like: "Chances of goin' to Heaven, 6 to 1!".