La rue chaude

Have you ever seen a film and wondered if maybe the producers picked names at random for the various parts? This is how I felt when I watched "Walk on the Wild Side"...a strangely cast film if I've ever seen one! First, British actor Laurence Harvey plays an American. Second, American actress Anne Baxter plays a Mexican-American! And, the French actress Capucine plays Harvey's love interest who lives in New Orleans. All very odd choices to say the least...and I don't know why they didn't just hire folks more suited for the parts. Clearly this is a case where the casting choices were inexplicable!

As for the story, Harvey plays Dove Linkhorn (wow...what an odd name)...a man who has been hitchhiking and riding the rails to get to New Orleans to find his lady love, Hallie (Capucine). He doesn't find her until well in to the movie...after which he's made the acquaintance of a couple other ladies. Kitty (Jane Fonda) overacts horribly here...and she later became a marvelous actress but certainly NOT in "Walk on the Wild Side"! Teresina (Baxter) is better....though her strange Mexican accent is out of place. Regardless, the two fall for him...but he's loyal to Hallie. Sadly, however, Hallie turns out to be a high-priced call girl and she evidently stopped waiting for Dove. What's next? See the film if you'd like.

The most interesting thing about the film is Barbara Stanwyck, who plays a woman who appears to be a lesbian (though she is married to a man). This was something pretty shocking back in 1962 and was apparently the first time an more overtly lesbian character was in an American mainstream movie--but it still isn't 100% explicitly stated. The rest of the movie has its moments and the plot is interesting. But the lack of subtlety, miscast characters and the general depressing nature of the plot make it a hard sell and take away from the story. In fact, I'd love to see a re-make of this picture, as the general plot is pretty unusual...but the execution, well, it's less than stellar.

In 1930s New Orleans Texan Laurence Harvey (!!) finds one time lover Capucine (!!!) working in a bordello. He wants to take her away, but the bordello's lesbian madam, Barbara Stanwyck wants Capucine for herself. Then there's Jane Fonda as a real wild girl...

Film starts off with a great title sequence that perfectly sets the tone of the film--loud, brassy and dirty. This was probably considered pretty controversial it its time (in fact it's never made totally clear than Stanwyck is a lesbian, but there are hints all over the place), but it's a camp classic now. It's sleazy but lots on fun with tons of campy dialogue to spare. Apparantely this film had a very whimsical casting director--Harvey (an English actor) and Capucine (a French actress) play Texans and Anne Baxter (in a black fright wig) is a Mexican!

The acting varies--Harvey is just OK with a credible Texas accent; Fonda is really great projecting raw sexuality; Capucine is beautiful but wooden; Stanwyck chews the scenery in a very amusing way and Baxter turns in a very moving and great performance.

Lots of fun with the right crowd--I saw it years ago with a gay and lesbian crowd and we laughed all the way through it!

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.

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.

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.