Rating: 
Summary: Meow! The Fur Flies in "Walk On The Wild Side"
Review: Last evening, I skipped the traditional televised holiday fare and watched Edward Dmytryk's "Walk On The Wild Side" (Columbia Pictures, 1962). Let's just say that the next time you're having friends over for melba toast and you're looking for the perfect over-the-top extravaganza to project on to the living room wall, this should be the featured attraction. Barbara Stanwyck is the lesbian owner of a New Orleans brothel known as "The Doll House." Glamorous Capucine (a 60's version of Garbo)is the most popular call girl since Holly Golightly and coveted by both her butch madame and a drifter named Dove (not kidding) played by the inscrutable Laurence Harvey. Add a youthful Jane Fonda (in her bulimic period) and a miscast Anne Baxter as a Mexican diner owner (cascading dark wig, inauthentic accent and all) and you've got one mesmerically curious flick. Oh, did I forget to mention that the entire thing kicks off with a title sequence in which two felines (one black, one white) engage in a vicious catfight punctuated by Elmer Bernstein's pulsating jazz score? Meow! They sure as hell don't make e'm like this anymore! - Mark Griffin ("Genre" Magazine)
Rating:
Summary: Meow! The Fur Flies in "Walk On The Wild Side"
Review: Last evening, I skipped the traditional televised holiday fare and watched Edward Dmytryk's "Walk On The Wild Side" (Columbia Pictures, 1962). Let's just say that the next time you're having friends over for melba toast and you're looking for the perfect over-the-top extravaganza to project on to the living room wall, this should be the featured attraction. Barbara Stanwyck is the lesbian owner of a New Orleans brothel known as "The Doll House." Glamorous Capucine (a 60's version of Garbo)is the most popular call girl since Holly Golightly and coveted by both her butch madame and a drifter named Dove (not kidding) played by the inscrutable Laurence Harvey. Add a youthful Jane Fonda (in her bulimic period) and a miscast Anne Baxter as a Mexican diner owner (cascading dark wig, inauthentic accent and all) and you've got one mesmerically curious flick. Oh, did I forget to mention that the entire thing kicks off with a title sequence in which two felines (one black, one white) engage in a vicious catfight punctuated by Elmer Bernstein's pulsating jazz score? Meow! They sure as hell don't make e'm like this anymore! - Mark Griffin ("Genre" Magazine)
Rating:
Summary: Laurence Harvey is our greatist Lithuanian-American actor.
Review: Perhaps the best music ever and absolutly the best credits with a facinating story line are enough to (barely) save this wonderful period piece. A must see for serious Movie nuts and New Orleans lovers.
Rating: 
Summary: Wretched and Delicious
Review: Tawdry trash, of the finest sort, rife with revolting characters and dreadful performances. Adapted from the same novel by noted Texas writer Nelson Algren, who, like Jim Thompson, wrote about the human underbelly. The screenplay, however, with multiple rewrites, including drafts by Clifford Odets and Ben Hecht, goes terribly awry. That, coupled with the fact that the movie suffers from deplorable casting, makes WWS a turgid and lurid (these are not necessarily *bad* qualities in a movie) drama along the lines of some ill-advised Tennessee Williams indulgence. With Laurence Harvey (nominated by one anonymous viewer as #1 Lithuanian-American actor of all time!) as Dove Linkhorn, a drifter searching for his lost love, a sculptor/prostitute named Hallie, played by the 100% beautiful and 100% talent-free Capucine. Also stars Jane Fonda, as Kitty Twist, an amoral, mentally-deficient thief and prostitute, the magnificent Barbara Stanwyck as Jo Carter, the glamorous but tough and domineering (of course) lesbian brothelkeeper at the "Dollhouse" where Kitty and Hallie work, and, mysteriously, the usually capable Anne Baxter stars as a Mexican woman who offers her *chicharonnes* to complete strangers. Please - this is 1962! Rita Moreno and Chita Rivera must have been out of town that weekend.
It is the early-30's in New Orleans, and the plot becomes complicated when Hallie, who, in Capucine's incompetent hands displays that particularly unpleasant early-60s European cinematic ennui, is reunited with Dove, and tries to leave the Dollhouse. Madam Jo, a part that Stanwyck sinks her teeth into as only *she* can, siccs her goons, led by her legless husband who drags himself around on a rolling cart, on Dove and Hallie, and things turn ugly and Hallie dies of an accidental gunshot wound. Also typical of early-60s filmmaking is the complete disregard for period-appropriate hair, makeup and costuming. If the titles hadn't told us this was the early-30s, we would have had no clue. The title song, which has a sleazy sound that is perfectly suited to this film, garnered an Oscar nomination. Other attention focused on this movie was no doubt based upon its one-time shocking content. Now, it is a very amusing, outdated, convoluted morality tale, whose lesson is a mystery.
Rating: 
Summary: The fabulous Barbara Stanwyck steals the show!
Review: The movie seems to be trying to shock us with its portrayal of a New Orleans whorehouse (and maybe it *was* shocking back then). But, viewed now, there isn't much of interest here. The acting is generally only just passable (and sometimes downright embarrassing--get a load of Anne Baxter as the Mexican woman!). HOWEVER, Barbara Stanwyck's terrific portrayal of the madam makes up for a lot of that. As usual, she steals every scene that she's in, giving such a forceful and convincing performance that you can't take your eyes off of her. She makes the picture worth at least a rental.
Rating: 
Summary: An oft forgotten gem from the early sixties.
Review: The opening credits are worth the price of admission in this drama of a young man seeking his lost love. Mild by todays' standards "Walk On The Wild Side" is a drama that covers an era when love and honor were virtues. Well acted, good music (title song sung by Brook Benton)and an opportunity to reflect on moral values.
Rating:
Summary: A Walk on the Wild Side
Review: This cinematic adaption of Nelson Algren 1930's New Orleans classic novel suffers by the dated censorship of the early 1960's, given its content love, morals and prositution, it needs the free rein of the post 1970 era to achieve its full impact. Laurence Harvey, gifted, elegant, articulate (Hebraic and English/Luithanian) is miscast a bit and asked to play a Texas farmer of high morals seeking lost love in a den of iniquity, the Big Easy, encounters beauty after beauty who adore and want him whom he spurns for his lost love! The beauties are respectively, Jane Fonda, Anne Baxter, Jo Anna Moore and all for the love of the abstract remote and cold Capucine! Brook Benton title song is classic and the direction excellent, Barbara Stanwyck leads the cast of villans who are all superb. Only the censors and the extreme reach called for by Mr. Harvey are the only flaws here. In all his other roles, Mr. Harvey is superb, alas,he died too soon, of cancer.
Rating: 
Summary: Skip the movie, read the book!
Review: This film is supposed to be an adaptation of Nelson Algren's novel, but it's not. The makers of this disaster took some of the plot elements and some of the characters and made up their own story.I strongly advise anyone who's seen this film to read the book. You'll see that Anne Baxter isn't the only one who's miscast. You'll also see why some things in the movie don't make sense. And you'll see why Nelson Algren didn't even attend the premiere.
Rating:
Summary: 'shudder'
Review: What an unpleasant film this is. Barbara Stanwyck was incapable of giving a bad performance, but participating in this undertaking must have been hard on her. Ann Baxter as a Mexican hash-slinger? That endlessly moaning New Orleans blues music? Moody Capucine as a call girl pursued by her madam? Not uplifting stuff. In fact,I have to believe that the only reason Miss Stanwyck appeared in this monstrosity was because she was a workaholic. She certainly didn't need the money. Granted, if I were wired differently, I don't think I could resist her advances...she was that charismatic. But this movie leaves a bad taste in the mouth. (...)
Rating:
Summary: "A Walk on the Mild Side"
Review: You will find yourself liking this movie in spite of the stiff performances. You'll may even feel compelled to watch it twice. "Chick flick" will be your husband's first remark. Yes, it is, and in marvelous black and white. What was wild in the early 1960's is considered mild in this century. But I still wouldn't want to explain this plot to a pre-teen. If you like this movie, you may also like other movies about sublimated or hidden desires, such as, "Reflections in a Golden Eye", or "Separate Tables" or "Night of the Generals".
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