Walk on the Wild Side

Barbara Stanwyck, Jane Fonda, Capucine, and Laurence Harvey take a "Walk on the Wild Side" in this 1962 film directed by Edward Dmytryk, based on the book by Nelson Algren. One reason the film is memorable is the title song by Elmer Bernstein.

The 1930s story begins with Dove Linkhorn (Harvey) meeting Kitty Twist (Jane Fonda) as they're both traveling out of Texas by the cheapest route possible. Though Kitty has the hots for Dove, he's headed for The Big Easy to find his girl Hallie (Capucine). It turns out that Hallie is working at the Doll House, a brothel run by lesbian Jo Courtney (Barbara Stanwyck) who is in love with Hallie and giving her the good life. Before Dove finds her, he winds up working at a café run by Teresina Vidaverri (Anne Baxter), who falls for him. When he finally connects with Hallie, he finds out that Kitty is now working at the Doll House too.

For some reason this film seemed like it was cut to ribbons. It's very disjointed. Fonda appears in the beginning and then drops out for what seems like an hour. Though she's certainly a beautiful woman today, seeing this film is a reminder of just how dazzling she was. Her acting is effective if a bit over the top, though she doesn't get a lot of help from the script. Stanwyck is excellent as a tough woman made vulnerable because of her love for Hallie.

In fact, Stanwyck and Fonda are the only two who are well cast in this movie. The rest of them seem as if someone pulled their names out of a hat. I mean, Laurence Harvey as a Texan? And because this film is produced by Charles Feldman, that means Capucine gets to come along and give one of her cold as ice, monotone-voiced, frozen-faced performances. We have no idea why Dove fell for her and why Jo loves her. But then, we didn't understand Franz Liszt falling for her in Song without End either. And, though the film is set in the '30s, again thanks to Mr. Feldman, Capucine wears the latest Pierre Cardin fashions.

I'm sure that in real life, Capucine (known as "Cap" to her friends) was a lovely and warm woman - Dirk Bogarde was crazy about her as a person, William Holden I believe was in love with her, and she was a good friend of Audrey Hepburn's - but she just never projected much on screen. Her casting here is woeful.

Anne Baxter does the best she can with her role.

The film is a real old-fashioned melodrama. In the end it doesn't really draw you in and it seems like a lot is missing. It's a miss, but a high budget one.

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!".

Laurence Harvey is on a quest to find his true love. He couldn't leave his ailing father, so of course Capucine as Hallie wound up in a house of sin in New Orleans, headed by Barbara Stanwyck. Laurence befriends Jane Fonda along the way to find Hallie, and Jane takes an instant liking to him and does what she can to get his attention. One pit stop was at Anne Baxter's little diner and gas station.

All this sounds quite simple, but its treatment and style is such that you feel its down-in-the-dirt quality and you get the feeling it's a guilty pleasure in watching it. It also features Juanita Moore, from "Imitation of Life" with Lana Turner, and Joanna Moore (who was the mother of Tatum O'Neal) has a very memorable if somewhat brief role.

For all the great stars and talent in the making of this movie, the one person you really empathize the most for is Anne Baxter, who comes to feel something for Laurence Harvey. Everyone else, including Laurence and Jane, are portrayed as somewhat selfish and hard in their own way; in other words, these are not very likable people. Even Capucine, who the viewer is supposed to feel sorry for in her predicament, doesn't really emote enough feelings for the viewer to really care about her.

I know I seem to be giving it a hard time, but I give it an '8' for its entertainment value and presentation with some of the best actors of the time. Like always, Stanwyck is great, and Anne Baxter's accent is so natural, you see the character and not Anne, which is a testimony to her acting chops. So, walk on the wild side with Stanwyck & company.

Savaged by the critics, (except perhaps for the over-praised Saul Bass designed credit sequence of a prowling cat), Edward Dmytryk's film version of Nelson Algren's 'scandalous' novel "Walk on the Wild Side" isn't nearly as bad as its reputation suggests. It's certainly unevenly acted, (a miscast Laurence Harvey is terrible and perhaps surprisingly Jane Fonda isn't much better but Barbara Stanwyck is terrific as a very butch lesbian madame and Capucine is surprisingly good as the object of both Harvey and Stanwyck's affection), and naturally it fudges the central issues of prostitution and lesbianism but it's very well shot by Joe MacDonald, beautifully designed and the screenplay by John Fante and Edmund Morris does manage to keep some of Algren's original poetry. Dmytryk was always a better director than critics gave him credit for and if he was often constrained by the studio system he was no slouch either. If this isn't the best film he ever made it still has much to recommend it.

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.