Something Wild is a 1961 American neo-noir[3]psychological thriller film directed by Jack Garfein[4][5] and starring his wife Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker.[6] It follows a young New York City college student who, after being brutally raped, is held captive by a mechanic who saves her from committing suicide on the Manhattan Bridge. The film is based on the 1958 novel Mary Ann by Alex Karmel, who cowrote the screenplay with Garfein.
Mary Ann Robinson, a teenage student in New York City, is brutally raped while walking in a park near her home in the Bronx. Traumatized by the experience, she washes away all of the evidence and destroys her clothing. She hides the rape from her mother and stepfather, with whom she has a distant relationship. Mary Ann unsuccessfully tries to continue living her normal life. She takes the subway to school and faints during the crush of people. The police escort her home, which upsets her prim and unsympathetic mother.
The rape continues to haunt Mary Ann. She leaves school abruptly and walks downtown through Harlem and Times Square to the Lower East Side. She rents a room there from a sinister-looking landlord of a seedy building. She takes a job at a five and ten store, where her coworkers dislike her because she is distant and unfriendly. Overwhelmed at her job after her coworkers play a prank on her, Mary Ann walks across the Manhattan Bridge and almost jumps to her death into the East River, but she is stopped by Mike, a mechanic. At first, he seems to have her best interests in mind, offering her shelter and food. She decides to stay with him, but when he comes home drunk and tries to attack her, Mary Ann kicks him in the eye. The following morning, he has no recollection of the incident, but his eye is badly hurt and eventually must be removed.
Mike forces Mary Ann to stay at his apartment, saying "I like the way you look here." She wants to leave, but he refuses to let her go, keeping the door locked. He holds her captive in the apartment, but she refuses to have anything to do with him.
One night, Mike proposes marriage to Mary Ann and she rejects him. He again attempts to be physical with her. Mary Ann reveals that is was she who blinded him in the eye. When Mary Ann discovers the door unlocked, she leaves, walking through the city and sleeping in Central Park. She later returns to Mike's apartment, and when he asks why she has returned, she says "I came for you." She writes her mother, who comes to the apartment and is shocked to see where and with whom Mary Ann lives. She has married Mike and announces that she is pregnant. Her mother insists that she come home, and Mary Ann replies that she now considers the apartment her home.
Prometheus Productions, formed by director Jack Garfein and his wife Carroll Baker, obtained film rights to Mary Ann, the first novel written by Alex Karmel, published in 1958. Karmel and Garfein wrote the script, and United Artists agreed to finance the film. It was originally titled Something Wild in the City.[7]
Morton Feldman was originally commissioned to compose the film's score, but when Garfein heard the music, he reportedly said "My wife is being raped and you write celesta music?" and replaced Feldman with Aaron Copland..[citation needed] In 1964, Copland reused some of the film's themes in his symphonic work Music for a Great City. The original film score, taken from private session recordings preserved by Garfein, was finally released on CD in 2003.
The opening title sequence by Saul Bass features many images of New York City, where the film was shot on location.
Release
Something Wild premiered at the Plaza Theatre in New York City on December 20, 1961.[8]
Reception
The film was not a financial success, described by Dorothy Kilgallen as a "box office disappointment" and "a financial blow to the star and her husband."[9]
[T]he real jolt the audience is asked to endure is the weird way she acts when she is fetched home by a lonesome fellow who has saved her from jumping off a bridge. Locked in his basement apartment, she snarls but she doesn't scream, she resists his clumsy attempts to be kind to her but she doesn't break a window and howl. ... [I]t is quite unnerving and confusing to go through the terrible, tedious torture that Mr. Garfein and Mr. Karmel have devised. It is quite exhausting to sit through that ordeal in the apartment, when she and the man, played grossly, yet gently, by Ralph Meeker, open and abrade each other's wounds. And what is more, it is not too satisfying, because it isn't quite credible and the symbolic meaning (if there is one) is beyond our ability to grasp.[10]
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."[citation needed]
Wanda Hale of the New York Daily News praised Baker as a "fine actress" and Garfein's direction "very tight and smooth," summarizing: "Something Wild carries a moral for the feminine sex: Don't walk in the city's parks alone after dark."[11]
In 2007, the film was screened at New York's IFC Center, billed as a "lost indie film classic."[citation needed]
Home media
The film was released for the first time on DVD as part of the MGM Limited Edition Collection in December 2011.[12] The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD on January 17, 2017.[13]
↑ Archer, Eugene (July 9, 1960). "SHUFTAN IS HERE FOR 1ST U.S. FILM: One of Europe's Top 'Mood' Camera Men Will Shoot 'Something Wild' in City". The New York Times. p.11.
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