Walk on the Wildside raises a dark spell with its ramshackle casting—so eccentric to the point of being strategic. It was. Apparently, producer Charles K. Feldman had a practice of using actors he also represented as an agent. This allowed him to earn an agent’s commission on top of his producer fees. Say no more.
It’s set in New Orleans, and, initially, there’s a Tennessee Williams/Streetcar vibe. But wait. We have Englishman Laurence Harvey, as a Texas tramp. Then French-born Capucine, replete with her impossible bone structure, as a Southern belle prostitute. And an over-energetic Jane Fonda as a trashy teenager looking for her next meal. Wait for American Anne Baxter (Eve from ‘All About Eve’) as a Mexican restauranteur. Their accents, for better and worse, are all over the place. But let us go forward… Finally, there’s Barbara Stanwyck, as the lesbian matriarch of the Doll House, a house of prostitution. Her character’s sexual proclivities are carefully filtered; however, we get the gist. It’s Barbara’s film. She provides a focal point with skill alone.
The film is based on a 1956 novel by Nelson Algren. The author notes, “The book asks why lost people sometimes develop into greater human beings than those who have never been lost in their whole lives. Why men who have suffered at the hands of other men are the natural believers in humanity, while those whose part has been simply to acquire, to take all and give nothing, are the most contemptuous of mankind.”
It’s doubtful that the film effectively conveys those sentiments, and when it does attempt a social perspective, things turn campy—what could be bitter and unresolved, drains into melodrama and a comfortable plot resolution. Director Edward Dmytryk once confessed it was a ‘troubled production’. This a walk on shaky ground.
Walk on the Wild Side is a cultural curio with a value beyond itself, wishing to ‘say something’, striving for relevancy, trying to reach way beyond its grasp. For a point of reference, that same year (1962), Lolita was released, a highly successful and praised film with much more controversial subject matter. Thank the heavens that it wasn’t produced by Charles K. Feldman.
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