(That's not to say that you wouldn't get it in the next 20 or 40 years, but now, that's just what I'm sayin', sayin'
).
I came to this film because of Brook Benton's vocal version of the title song. His deep, almost militaristic voice (unusual for Benton) and the marching drums--suggesting damnation, or at least eternity--evoke powerful sensory responses—it seems like an R&B song with a gospel preacher teaching a hoodlum, and the ending is nigh-on (perfectly and compellingly—but about what?) operatic. With memorable Mack David lyrics like "One day of praying, and six nights of fun; the odds against going to heaven—six to one," the song encapsulates the moral compromises the film shows but doesn't study.
The ludicrously named Texan "Dove Linkhorn" (Brit Laurence Harvey) sets off to find his former brief flame, Hallie (the French Capucine), and at first encounters "Kitty Twist" (Jane Fonda), then supposedly Mexican Teresina Vidaverri (Anne Baxter), and then his beloved Hallie, and then, along with brothel-owner Jo (Barbara Stanwyck), all of them more or less separately or all together. He travels from Texas to Louisiana, and it sure does seem that short a stretch, no matter how big you think Texas is.
Paint by numbers rarely works.
(The idea of a bunch of people from different backgrounds completely suits polyglot New Orleans, but almost nothing is made of the music and the few glimpses we get of black musicians or actors make this 1962 film retrograde for its time. Sexually speaking, for the film IS about sex, I suppose one can only say this—back then, a sexual transgression made you infamous, and now it makes you famous. In broad terms, which is the more morally appropriate?)
The pace is slow; there are many good lines, but they're derivative of the hard-boiled genre, and add up to nothing in a film about serious issues like prostitution and abuse and subjugation; it ends up being every actor for him or herself, and the leads let us down (everyone else breathes life into the movie!). The metronomic and unconvincing Harvey shows down in a cool-off with the somnolent and at-best unpersuaded Capucine (the script? the role? her place in a movie taking on serious issues as superficially as this?).
Renowned director Edward Dmytryk bears part of the blame for this movie, too. He had such a collection of actors around him that, perhaps, he chose to go almost exclusively with medium shots, or occasionally head shots. That's understandable, but the longish (for its era and for all the script has to say) film becomes oppressive as a result; the movie is supposed to be in New Orleans, but it could have been shot at your house. Yes, a brothel is a sealed place, but its sealedness only takes meaning from the sense of a world outside.
The black and white filming is nice, for those who like it (like me), but in the end feels a bit false, already, for its time. It really is neat to see a film that is essentially dominated by a strong female cast—Fonda, Stanwyck, Baxter, Joanna Moore (Miss Precious—about to marry Ryan O' Neal), and I guess Capucine. But it also shows how dim-witted screen writing, unimaginative directing, and desiccated morals can take some strong performances and turn them into a weak result.
The movie does gather some momentum towards the end, as if everyone realizes what they're there for—to end this abortive effort. It has an ending at once ironic and unironic, much as the song, in Benton's singing, anyway, does—it's frankly impossible to tell what is more successful, more alluring, more saving, than walking or not on the wild side. Once you hear Brook Benton's "Walk on the Wild Side," it probably won't ever fade away from your memory banks forever. The movie. . . yeah probably.
I came to this film because of Brook Benton's vocal version of the title song. His deep, almost militaristic voice (unusual for Benton) and the marching drums--suggesting damnation, or at least eternity--evoke powerful sensory responses—it seems like an R&B song with a gospel preacher teaching a hoodlum, and the ending is nigh-on (perfectly and compellingly—but about what?) operatic. With memorable Mack David lyrics like "One day of praying, and six nights of fun; the odds against going to heaven—six to one," the song encapsulates the moral compromises the film shows but doesn't study.
The ludicrously named Texan "Dove Linkhorn" (Brit Laurence Harvey) sets off to find his former brief flame, Hallie (the French Capucine), and at first encounters "Kitty Twist" (Jane Fonda), then supposedly Mexican Teresina Vidaverri (Anne Baxter), and then his beloved Hallie, and then, along with brothel-owner Jo (Barbara Stanwyck), all of them more or less separately or all together. He travels from Texas to Louisiana, and it sure does seem that short a stretch, no matter how big you think Texas is.
Paint by numbers rarely works.
(The idea of a bunch of people from different backgrounds completely suits polyglot New Orleans, but almost nothing is made of the music and the few glimpses we get of black musicians or actors make this 1962 film retrograde for its time. Sexually speaking, for the film IS about sex, I suppose one can only say this—back then, a sexual transgression made you infamous, and now it makes you famous. In broad terms, which is the more morally appropriate?)
The pace is slow; there are many good lines, but they're derivative of the hard-boiled genre, and add up to nothing in a film about serious issues like prostitution and abuse and subjugation; it ends up being every actor for him or herself, and the leads let us down (everyone else breathes life into the movie!). The metronomic and unconvincing Harvey shows down in a cool-off with the somnolent and at-best unpersuaded Capucine (the script? the role? her place in a movie taking on serious issues as superficially as this?).
Renowned director Edward Dmytryk bears part of the blame for this movie, too. He had such a collection of actors around him that, perhaps, he chose to go almost exclusively with medium shots, or occasionally head shots. That's understandable, but the longish (for its era and for all the script has to say) film becomes oppressive as a result; the movie is supposed to be in New Orleans, but it could have been shot at your house. Yes, a brothel is a sealed place, but its sealedness only takes meaning from the sense of a world outside.
The black and white filming is nice, for those who like it (like me), but in the end feels a bit false, already, for its time. It really is neat to see a film that is essentially dominated by a strong female cast—Fonda, Stanwyck, Baxter, Joanna Moore (Miss Precious—about to marry Ryan O' Neal), and I guess Capucine. But it also shows how dim-witted screen writing, unimaginative directing, and desiccated morals can take some strong performances and turn them into a weak result.
The movie does gather some momentum towards the end, as if everyone realizes what they're there for—to end this abortive effort. It has an ending at once ironic and unironic, much as the song, in Benton's singing, anyway, does—it's frankly impossible to tell what is more successful, more alluring, more saving, than walking or not on the wild side. Once you hear Brook Benton's "Walk on the Wild Side," it probably won't ever fade away from your memory banks forever. The movie. . . yeah probably.