Movie Preview: Willa, Dermot and Shane and Chevelles - If the Stereotypes Fit, it must be “The Dirty South”.Movie Preview: Costner finally makes his “How the West Was Won” - a Two Part Western Epic, “Horizon: An American Saga”.Movie Review: WWII Hungarians in the USSR contend with partisans and atrocities in the grey “Natural Light”.Netflixable? Vengeance in Pointe Shoe Pixie Form - “Ballerina”.And in the hands of a pretty good director (Edward “Crossfire” Dymtryk) and a good cast including a future two-time Oscar winner, it more wild than mild, and that’ll do. But “Walk on the Wild Side” grabs its Southern sin and sadism cliches, its good-girl-gone wrong (NOT Kitty, oh no.) tropes and takes them for a spin. It might be - OK it definietly is - Tennessee Williams Lite. “I hope it’s easier to eat than pronounce.” But Fonda lets us see Kitty working it, scheming it, sassing it, facing Terasina-might-steal-her-man-with-warmth with spit and a little xenophobia Stanwyck is fierce in her best scenes, a matriarch growing into her tough broad middle age. I’ve seen it and it’s a wonder to behold.īut this movie is Jane Fonda’s “a star is born” moment. Every person you confront was liable to come back at you, and hot, with her or his own interpretations of Christiianity. And that’s an accurate taste of the South of that time, too. God is mercy and forgiveness! Try preaching that sometimes, Mister Preacher!” “You’re no friend to God or man,” Dove barks, “standing there, hollering hate to the world. Ken Lynch, who played a lot of cops and heavies over the years, plays the city-hall-connected “friend” of the bordello, and a big fan of Hallie.Īnd Okie-lean John Anderson plays a judgmental, fire and brimstone street preacher who meets his match when he calls Hallie “harlot.” The abusive pimp puts on gloves before slapping around simple Georgia girl Precious (Moore, who gained a measure of immortality from a four episode arc on “The Andy Griffith Show,” of all things). The film, adapted from a Nelson Algren novel - he wrote the dope thriller “Man with the Golden Arm” - plays on screen likeTennessee Williams Lite, from its sordid New Orleans setting to the Big Themes of naive optimism struggling against cruel reality. She’ll need that pull when Dove finds her and tries to, as the cliche goes, take her away from all this. She’s in demand, which gives her throw weight about Madam Jo (Stanwyck) and her muscle, the sadistic Oliver ( Richard Rust). Turns out Hallie (Capucine, of “The Pink Panther”), an aspiring artist, lives and works in The Doll House. The utterly opportunistic Kitty goes her own way, for a while. But events conspire to sideline him at Teresina’s Cafe ( Anne Baxter slinging the chicharrones and an accent) Cafe, for a bit. “Talkers ain’t never cute, and the cute ones never talk.”ĭove is on his way to find a long-lost summer love, Hallie. A safe bet would be that he wrote most of Hank Fonda’s daughter’s lines. Legend has it that Ben Hecht contributed to this screenplay. Just cough now and then like you’re dying.” “What’d you tell’em?” Dove wants to know about a compliant trucker. “greenhorn” under her wing, jumping trains and showing a little leg to help with the hitchhiking. He meets the fiesty, amoral and light-fingered Kitty, who meets Dove on the tramp, hitchhiking and hoboing his way across Depression Era Texas for New Orleans. Laurence Harvey has one of his better roles as lean, 30ish Dove Linkhorn, who just buried his daddy on the small family ranch outside of Arroyo, Texas. The versatile Anne Baxter and earth mama Joanna Moore were also on board, after all.īut try and take your eyes off Fonda in this melodramatic but rarely sentimental Great Depression tale of women, a Big Easy brothel and the innocent young man from Texas who doesn’t realize what his long lost love has been up to in the years since they parted.įonda pretty much steals the picture as Kitty Twist from Paducah, raw and broke and hungry and on the road until she makes her way to New Orleans where she’ll prove “a gal’s always…got other things she can use” to make a buck.īarbara Stanwyck plays the madam of The Doll House brothel, so there’ll be no “stealing from the house” and no scene stealing on her watch, thank you very much. The regal French beauty Capucine was higher billed. Jane Fonda wasn’t the star attraction, or even the prettiest actress on the screen in her third film, 1962’s “Walk on the Wild Side.”
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