Walk on the Wild Side Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		4.0

Walk on the Wild Side Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson March 12, 2022

Canadian-born Edward Dmytryk was an accomplished director in Hollywood of over fifty features, including such classics as Murder, My Sweet (1944), Crossfire (1947), and The Caine Mutiny (1954). He also wrote books on screenwriting, directing, editing, acting, and cinema as a philosophical practice. In addition, Dmytryk also authored books on his experiences as one of the Hollywood Ten and It's a Hell of a Life, But Not a Bad Living: A Hollywood Memoir. In the latter, he recounts the chaotic production of his forty-second feature, Walk on the Wild Side (1962). Dmytryk was brought in the middle of pre-production by his agent, the producer Charles K. Feldman. Dmytryk writes that he "rewrote and cut a number of scenes and eventually got the needed approval, and Charlie got his studio deal, with Columbia." Clifford Odets was the first acknowledged writer to work on the script but he didn't have a clear direction of how to adapt Nelson Algren's eponymous 1956 novel. Feldman hired Ben Hecht to polish the script and Dmytryk says he spent two weeks living in Hecht's home of Nyack, New York where Hecht "conscientiously and meticulously reworked the dialogue from page one to the final fadeout." Dmytryk told the Fort Worth Star Telegram around the time the movie came out that five writers worked on the screenplay. Feldman told Dmytryk that he planned to travel to Europe when Walk on the Wild Side began filming but breached his word and stuck around. According to Dmytryk, Feldman continuously sent him rewrites and added scenes which he and the actors mutually agreed to discard. Dmytryk says the material was akin to soft porn and had no chance of getting past the censor. Feldman's girlfriend at the time was the French model Capucine and the producer got her an important role in the film.

Set in the 1930s, Walk on the Wild Side begins as Texas farmer Dove Linkhorn (Laurence Harvey) is on the road in search of his love interest, the artist Hallie Gerard (Capucine). Off the road, he finds hobo Kitty Twist (Jane Fonda), who's been sleeping in a sewer pipe. Kitty has been in an orphanage and recently escaped from reform school. She wants to tag along with Dove. The two drifters reach a Mexican cafe owned by Teresina Vidaverri (Anne Baxter), a widow. Kitty pretends that she's sick so she can take refuge in Teresina's bedroom. After very briefly lying down, Kitty goes through Teresina's drawers where she hopes to snag some money. Kitty makes a mess and gets in a verbal spat with Teresina. Both Kitty and Dove are thrown out. However, Dove feels bad about what happened, parts ways with Kitty, and returns to the cafe to become Teresina's hired hand. Kitty eventually reaches New Orleans' The Doll House, a bordello run by a strict and uptight madame named Jo Courtney (Barbara Stanwyck). Hallie also works there as prostitute, one of Jo's very best. Jo operates the brothel more like a prison and if she encounters any trouble with her ladies, she instructs her enforcer, the well-dressed and intimidating Oliver (Richard Rust), to handle them. Will Dove find Hallie and free her from Jo's wrath so they can have a life together?

Walk on the Wild Side dealt with several mature and adult themes that were risqué at a time when the Production Code was changing. These are handled very tastefully and competently by a cast of excellent actors. Jane Fonda brings spunk, sensuality, and seductiveness to a ruinous character who earns the audience's sympathy. Barbara Stanwyck is wonderful as the villainous Jo and doesn't overplay her hand. Some critics chastised Laurence Harvey for his faux Texas accent but I couldn't tell that he's an Englishman. I couldn't recognize Anne Baxter as the cafe owner. She loses herself in the role and unbeknownst to the filmmakers, was seven months pregnant while shooting this film!

Harvey and Fonda had a contentious working relationship on this picture. Harvey appeared to tell two different stories about his co-star. George Haddad-Garcia wrote in his book, The Films of Jane Fonda, that Harvey found Fonda "a pleasure to work with." He quoted the actor: “She’s a quick study and an intelligent girl...she’s learned more than most actresses who’ve made half a dozen pictures. She’s attractive but not overly concerned with her looks, and she’s easy to get along with.” However, Harvey also told Fonda biographer Michael Freedland: "What a strange girl!" he said. "She seems to be suffering from the Hollywood disease - get yourself a big name and there's no need to live up to it. She has a few things written about her and she comes to the conclusion she's the biggest star in the movie business. You can't tell her anything. Two hours on the set and she's playing director and running the outfit." Fonda doesn't discuss working with Harvey on the film in her 2006 memoirs, My Life So Far.

In spite of the difficulties on and off the set, Walk on the Wild Side was pretty warmly received by critics. Kate Cameron of the Daily (NY) News wrote in her three-out-of-four-stars review: "Barbara Stanwyck, lured back to the screen after deserting it for TV, plays the hard, tenacious brothel-keeper. impressively. Anne Baxter, who plays the only decent woman in the story, is impressively good. It is Jane Fonda, however, whose performance in the role of a girl vagrant is startling in its realism. The strong facial resemblance to her father ends there, as nothing of Henry’s slow-moving man­nerisms appears in Jane’s acting technique. She is dynamic in movement and has a profile and view that photograph remarkably like those of Marilyn Monroe." The Baltimore Sun's R. H. Gardner was hyperbolic about the young starlet: "Miss Fonda—there can no longer be any doubt about it—is a much better performer than her father; she has a better shape, too." The movie also was greeted with positive press in the UK. A reviewer for the Liverpool Echo proclaimed: "[T]his is one of those films which Hollywood makes so brilliantly that its essential silliness is dis­guised."

Walk on the Wild Side Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Sony's MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50 (disc size: 28.73 GB) of Walk on the Wild Side is sourced from a recent 4K restoration that looks sparkling. Appearing in its original theatrical exhibition ratio of 1.85:1, the transfer displays little to no print damage. The first reel's footage was shot at dusk as you can see how dark and gray it is in Screenshot #s 20-21. You also can tell how nicely balanced the grain structure is (capture # 13). Much of the movie was filmed at night and even the day scenes don't sport much sunlight. To give you an exemplar of the black levels, check out the black cat in the sewer pipe in #22. Frame grabs 24-25 caught my eye because the trees and church in the background are noticeably blurry compared to Harvey and Capucine in the fore (the cross is particularly blurry). Sony has encoded the feature at an average video bitrate of 28617 kbps.

Sony has provided a dozen scene selections for the 114-minute film.

Walk on the Wild Side Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Sony has supplied a DTS-HD Master Audio Dual Mono (1837 kbps, 24-bit). The restored monaural mix presents clean dialogue. I was able to make out the Southern and Mexican accents. There is no audible hiss, pops, or crackles. Ava's original soundtrack album for Walk on the Wild Side was mixed in stereo and the musical presentation here also sounds like it was mixed in stereo. The center channels pack a punch when Elmer Bernstein and Mack David's Oscar-nominated title tune plays during the main titles. Bernstein came up with a wonderful jazz score that's dominated by trumpet. He also wrote some lovely underscore that's punctuated by woodwinds. They recall the music his mentor, Aaron Copland, composed for Our Town (1940).

Sony includes optional English and French subtitles, which can be switched on through the menu.

Walk on the Wild Side Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Trailer (3:08, 1080p) - Columbia's original theatrical trailer for Walk on the Wild Side presented in 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen (bitrate: 25170 kbps) with Dolby Digital 2.0 mono (192 kbps). This has been fully restored. The trailer makes nice use of the title song.

Walk on the Wild Side Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Walk on the Wild Side may be Tennessee Williams and William Faulkner lite but director Edward Dmytryk and his talented cast turn this melodrama into something of an overlooked classic. It was only Jane Fonda's second film and she succeeded in shedding her "girl next door" image. This also was Barbara Stanwyck's comeback movie and she takes full advantage of her limited screen time. Sony delivers an outstanding transfer from a 4K scan. The only extra is a long theatrical trailer, which is a wonderful one. Arrow UK released the movie last fall with an audio commentary, three interviews (two new/one vintage), and a stills gallery. (It doesn't have any trailers, though.) Despite a no-frills edition, this Sony Blu-ray comes HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.