Something Wild (1961 film)
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Something Wild was a 1961 independent rape and revenge film, starring Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker and directed by Jack Garfein, who was Baker's husband at the time.
The film, adapted from a book by novelist Alex Karmel, violated a number of Hollywood conventions and taboos by showing an on-screen rape and brief nudity. It featured a musical score by Aaron Copland and was filmed largely on location in New York City, which was rare at the time.
Well known stage actors of the era, such as Mildred Dunnock, Doris Roberts and Jean Stapleton, had roles in the movie. The director of photography, Eugen Schüfftan, was a noted German cinematographer, inventor of the Schüfftan process, who won the Academy Award the following year for The Hustler.
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Plot summary
Mary Ann Robinson is a teenage girl attending college in New York City. On her way home, while walking through the park, she is brutally raped. Traumatized by the experience, Mary Ann washes away all the evidence and destroys her clothing. She hides the rape from her mother and stepfather, with whom she has a distant relationship.
Mary Ann tries to continue living her normal life, unsuccessfully. She takes the subway to school and faints during the crush of people. That results in the police taking her home, which upsets her prim and unsympathetic mother, played by Mildred Dunnock.
The rape continues to haunt Mary Ann. She leaves school abruptly and walks downtown, through Harlem and Times Square, down to the Lower East Side. She rents a room from a sinister landlord (Martin Kosleck), who overcharges her. She takes a job at a five-and-dime store and her coworkers dislike her because she is distant and unfriendly. Her crude, promiscuous neighbor at the rooming house (Jean Stapleton) is rebuffed when she tries to be friendly.
At the end of her tether, Mary Ann walks across the Manhattan Bridge and almost jumps in the East River when she is stopped by a sympathetic mechanic, Mike (Ralph Meeker). At first he seems to be a knight in shining armor. She decides to stay with him. But that night he comes home drunk, tries to attack her, and Mary Ann kicks him in the eye. The following morning he has no recollection of that, but his eye is badly hurt and has to be removed.
Mike now says that he wants Mary Ann to stay there, saying "I like the way you look here." She wants to leave but he refuses to let her go. He holds her captive in the apartment for months, even though she refuses to have anything to do with him.
One day Mike leaves the door unlocked. Mary Ann leaves, walks through the city, sleeps in Central Park, and now she sees how wonderful life is. She goes back to the apartment and decides to stay with Mike, voluntarily. She marries Mike and rebuffs her mother's attempt to get her to return home.
Cast
- Carroll Baker as Mary Ann Robinson
- Ralph Meeker as Mike
- Mildred Dunnock as Mrs. Gates
- Jean Stapleton as Shirley Johnson
- Doris Roberts as Mary Ann's co-worker
- Clifton James as Detective Bogart
- George L. Smith as Store Manager
Music
The score for the 1961 film was by the distinguished American composer Aaron Copland, who in 1964 re-used some of its themes in his symphonic work "Music For a Great City." The original film score, taken from private session recordings preserved by the director, was released on CD in 2003.
Originally, Morton Feldman was commissioned to compose the score for the film, but when the director heard the music, he promptly withdrew his commission, opting to enlist Aaron Copland instead. The reaction of the baffled director was said to be, "My wife is being raped and you write celesta music?" [1]
Critical reception
The movie received an uneven critical response. Jonas Mekas wrote in Film Quarterly that the film was the "most interesting American film of the quarter; it may become the most underestimated film of the year."
However, New York Times critic Bosley Crowther said that it was "quite exhausting to sit through that ordeal in the apartment." and that "it is not too satisfying, because it isn't quite credible and the symbolic meaning (if there is one) is beyond our grasp."
The movie was not a commercial success, and was Jack Garfein's final project as a movie director.
The film was never released on DVD or home video. It was shown at New York's IFC Center in early 2007, billed as a "lost indie film classic."
