Kuuma katu

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.