Something Wild (1961 film)

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Something Wild
Something Wild (1961) poster advertisement.jpg
Promotional poster
Directed by Jack Garfein
Written by
  • Jack Garfein
  • Alex Karmel
Based onMary Ann
by Alex Karmel
Produced byGeorge Justin
Starring
Cinematography Eugen Schüfftan
Edited byCarl Lerner
Music by Aaron Copland
Production
company
Prometheus Enterprises [1]
Distributed by United Artists
Release date
  • December 20, 1961 (1961-12-20)
Running time
113 minutes [2]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$1 million [3] [4]

Something Wild is a 1961 American neo-noir [5] psychological thriller film directed by Jack Garfein [6] [7] and starring Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, Mildred Dunnock, Jean Stapleton, and Martin Kosleck. [8] It follows a young New York City college student who, after being brutally raped in a Bronx park, 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.

Contents

Plot

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 is eventually surgically 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 it 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.

Cast

Production

Development

Jack Garfein and Carroll Baker on the set of Something Wild Jack Garfein and Carroll Baker on set of "Something Wild".jpg
Jack Garfein and Carroll Baker on the set of Something Wild

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. [9]

Rehearsals began in the early summer of 1960. [10]

Filming

The opening title sequence by Saul Bass features many images of New York City, where the film was shot on location. Filming was underway in September 1960 [11] on a budget of $1 million,$1 million [3] and was completed by mid-October 1960. [12] Baker's sister, Virginia, makes a minor appearance in the film as a shopgirl. [11]

Music

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. [13] 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.

Release

Something Wild premiered at the Plaza Theatre in New York City on December 20, 1961. [14] [15] It was released in London the following year, on September 7, 1962, [16] where it received an X certificate. [2]

Home media

The film was released for the first time on DVD as part of the MGM Limited Edition Collection in December 2011. [17] The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD on January 17, 2017. [18]

Reception

Box office

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." [19]

Critical response

In a contemporary review for The New York Times , critic Bosley Crowther wrote:

[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. [20]

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." [21]

Critic Glenn Erickson described the film a 2017 retrospective as one of the best American art films ever made. [22]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Something Wild". AFI Catalog of Feature Films . American Film Institute. Archived from the original on June 27, 2024.
  2. 1 2 "Something Wild". British Board of Film Classification. Archived from the original on December 27, 2025.
  3. 1 2 Kubasik, Bob (September 1, 1960). "Director Gets $1 Million For Film, Still Has Gripe". Newsday . p. 3C – via Newspapers.com.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ LaSalle, Mick (August 20, 2010). "Not Necessarily Noir festival at the Roxie". SFGate . Archived from the original on January 13, 2024.
  6. ↑ "Something Wild". Harvard Film Archive . Archived from the original on November 26, 2020.
  7. ↑ Gabardi, Chiara Spagnoli (June 17, 2022). "Tribeca Festival : Review / The Wild One, A Magnificent Documentary Where Life And Craft Resound Social Justice Consciousness". Cinema Daily US. Archived from the original on December 27, 2025.
  8. ↑ "Something Wild". Turner Classic Movies . Archived from the original on September 7, 2013. Retrieved April 19, 2016.
  9. ↑ Weiler, A. H. (May 1, 1960). "View from a Local Vantage Point". The New York Times . p. X7.
  10. ↑ Morehouse, Ward (July 16, 1960). "Man of Violent World: Director Jack Garfein". The Buffalo News . p. 13 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. 1 2 "'Something Wild' At Woolworth's". Brooklyn Daily. September 12, 1960. p. 19 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. ↑ "Shooting Finished". New York Daily News . October 17, 1960. p. 47 – via Newspapers.com.
  13. ↑ Feldman 2006, p. 264.
  14. ↑ "Next at Plaza". New York Daily News . December 5, 1961. p. 63 – via Newspapers.com.
  15. ↑ "Something new is happening at the Plaza Theatre". New York Daily News . December 10, 1961. p. 8 – via Newspapers.com.
  16. ↑ "Something Wild: Starts Tomorrow". The Standard . September 6, 1962. p. 10 – via Newspapers.com.
  17. ↑ Mavis, Paul (March 6, 2012). "Something Wild (1961)". DVD Talk . Archived from the original on December 18, 2017.
  18. ↑ Vurki, Mithram (October 14, 2016). "The Criterion Collection Announces January Titles: 'His Girl Friday,' 'Black Girl' and More". IndieWire . Archived from the original on December 27, 2025.
  19. ↑ Kilgallen, Dorothy (January 8, 1962). "On Broadway". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette . p. 29 – via Newspapers.com.
  20. ↑ Crowther, Bosley (December 21, 1961). "The Screen: A Shattering Experience". The New York Times . p. 30. Archived from the original on December 27, 2025.
  21. ↑ Hale, Wanda (December 21, 1961). "'Something Wild' On Plaza Screen". New York Daily News . p. 171 – via Newspapers.com.
  22. ↑ Erickson, Glenn (January 10, 2017). "Something Wild (1961)". Trailers from Hell . Archived from the original on December 27, 2025.

Sources

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