Wrote Bosley Crowther, in 1962, reviewing the movie "Walk on the Wild Side."
I like the way Crowther, scoffing at the mildness of the suggestiveness, can only bring himself to mildly suggest that the Barbara Stanwyck character is sexually attracted to a woman.
Why did I watch that movie? Because it's one of the movies the Criterion Channel has assembled under the heading "cat movies":
Nice music! That's by Elmer Bernstein. Not really evocative of a New Orleans bordello, but who cares? The score was nominated for an Oscar, but Henry Mancini won for "The Days of Wine and Roses," which I bet you can hum along to.
Capucine was beautiful, in my opinion, but I see (at Wikipedia) that when Dirk Bogarde asked the director Luchino Visconti to cast her in "Death in Venice," Visconti said, "She has a horrible voice and too many teeth. She looks like a horse, a beautiful horse, I know that, I was a trainer. I know all about horses, but I don't want a horse."
They don't write scores like that anymore, and they don't insult women like that anymore.
This might be a "bad" movie, but it's great fun to watch. You get to see beautiful women swanning around in a dreamy whorehouse. It's supposed to be the 1930s, but Capucine is dressed in 1962 fashions.
Jane Fonda is there too. The actress was 25, but she plays someone who's supposed to be underage. I think the cat in the credits is supposed to represent her, because the character's name is Kitty Twist.
This is the best part: Barbara Stanwyck denouncing men:
What does any man know about love?!!!
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53 comments:
They don't insult women any more? Didn't Trump just call Haley a birdbrain?
Now I have to find that article that discussed how some opening/closing credits are so starkly different from the mood and tone of the movie in between, while others (the classic first Star Wars for example) are seemless to the actual film.
There's a great cat scene at the beginning of "The Long Goodbye".
If you watch old Disney cartoon movies -the cats are always the villains and bad guys.
Were any birds harmed in the making of this cat movie?
Thanks for the theme music. One of my fondest memories is being in a band that covered the big band version of this when I was in high school. This was our favorite chart.
Here's the version with the incredible Jimmy Smith.
Cats movies?
You are going to need some eye bleach after this one:
https://media.gq.com/photos/5dfa6cf1bf1ed60009c5cc48/16:9/w_2560%2Cc_limit/01-cats-movie-questions-gq-december-2019-121819.jpg
Capucine does look rather horse face in that Wikipedia picture.
I saw the movie long ago, probably in the 60s. I don't remember much about it but I also don't remember being impressed by it. I did kind of like the theme song.
On the other hand, about 10-15 years ago I got into reading Nelson Algren and read the novel. Algren is a Hell of an author.
John Henry
"They don't insult women any more? Didn't Trump just call Haley a birdbrain?"
That's about her intelligence, not her looks. I said they don't insult women like that any more.
BTW, I did think about Trump when I wrote about what Visconti said. If anyone around today would say something like "She looks like a horse, a beautiful horse... I know all about horses, but I don't want a horse," it would be Trump.
There were a lot of movies with Elmer Bernstein soundtracks. B&W dramas all through the 50s. The music was supposed to sound so hip, so modern, so edgy.
Then Beatles Stones Dylan arrived and everything that came before sounded absurd.
Hollywood movies and TV totally lost touch for about 10 years and it was hilarious. Who are these kids? What do they like? How do we capture them again?
Good times; We totally tuned them out.
They don't insult women any more? Didn't Trump just call Haley a birdbrain?
That’s not an insult to a woman. It’s an insult to birds.
"There's a great cat scene at the beginning of "The Long Goodbye""
"The Long Goodbye" is one of Criterion's "Cat Movies" that are streaming this month.
I've watched it twice fairly recently (plus once long ago), but I might watch it again. I'll see how far I get into this collection.
"Walk on the Wild Side" was the second on I watched in the collection. The first was "Inside Llewyn Davis."
"The only cat in the movie is in the opening and closing credits...."
Technically, there is at least a glimpse of part of a cat in the actual movie. We see Kitty Twist holding a cat, which is partially visible, and I think this is for less than a second.
The acting a little ripe as is the symbolism. Couldn't they have given the amputee a wheelchair or prostheses? Well, they didn't have him crawling on the floor so that's a positive step for dual leg amputees. Baby steps forward in Hollywood's depiction of the handicapped.....The opening credits are pretty good. Did they inspire those for The Pink Panther? The Pink Panther credits are universally acknowledged as the best opening credits of all time.
I don't know if it's the greatest, but the only cat movie I can think of is Cat People with N. Kinski. She was a little long in the tooth for Polanski, but you can see what he saw in her. I haven't seen the movie in a long time, but I have fond memories of it. I guess the Pink Panther movies don't qualify as cat movies.
"On the other hand, about 10-15 years ago I got into reading Nelson Algren and read the novel. Algren is a Hell of an author."
I've been skimming reviews of the movie and get the impression that the book is worse than the movie.
"The Long Goodbye" is one of my favorite films and it's held up with multiple viewings over the decades. But it seems tenuous to label it as a Cat Movie. But perhaps no less than the other films in that collection.
Capucine was a beautiful woman
Jane Fonda gets started. She was a great 1960s it girl. If you’re going to have a Revolution then definitely go for the drug fueled sexual revolution.
I'm allergic to cat movies.
IF you want to watch a GREAT Barbara Stanwyck movie, watch Baby Face (1933).. It's NAUGHTY!
Plot
Lily Powers, an attractive young woman, works for her father, Nick, in a speakeasy in Erie, Pennsylvania, during Prohibition. Her father has been prostituting her to his customers since she was 14 years old. An influential politician threatens to have the speakeasy shut down after Lily refuses to have sex with him...
Later she and her best friend, a young Black woman named Chico who was her co-worker at the speakeasy, illegally board a freight train to New York City but are discovered by a railroad worker. He threatens to report them to the police but Lily seduces him and the two women remain on the train...
In Manhattan, Lily seeks work at Gotham Trust, a large international bank. She seduces the personnel worker to land a clerical job. In the filing department, Lily begins an affair with Jimmy McCoy Jr., who recommends her for promotion to his boss, Brody. She easily seduces Brody, and he promotes her to the mortgage department. Later, Brody and Lily are caught having sex in the ladies' room by a rising young executive, Ned Stevens. Ned fires Brody on the spot..
there's MORE, but you get the general gist.. Babs LITERALLY sleeps her way to the top
MOfarmer said...
They don't insult women any more? Didn't Trump just call Haley a birdbrain?
that sounds like an insult.. An insult to birds
Is Harry and Tonto on their list of cat movies?
"There were a lot of movies with Elmer Bernstein soundtracks. B&W dramas all through the 50s."
He kept doing scores, many of them, up through the 90s and even into the 2000s. He did the soundtrack for Scorsese's "Bringing Out the Dead" in the late 90s. So many movies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_compositions_by_Elmer_Bernstein
"His theme for The Magnificent Seven is also familiar to television viewers, as it was used in commercials for Marlboro cigarettes...."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmer_Bernstein
"John Landis grew up near Bernstein, and befriended him through his children. Years later, he requested that Bernstein compose the music for National Lampoon's Animal House, over the studio's objections. He explained to Bernstein that he thought that Bernstein's score, playing it straight as if the comedic Delta frat characters were actual heroes, would emphasize the comedy further. The opening theme of the film is based upon a slight inversion of a secondary theme from Brahms's Academic Festival Overture. Bernstein accepted the job, and it sparked a second wave in his career, where he continued to compose music for high-profile comedies such as Ghostbusters, Stripes, Airplane! and The Blues Brothers, as well as most of Landis's films for the next 15 years, including An American Werewolf in London, Trading Places, and the music video to the Michael Jackson song "Thriller"."
"The opening credits are pretty good. Did they inspire those for The Pink Panther?"
I don't know, but Capucine plays Inspector Clouseau's wife.
There are no great cat movies.
I heard that Brian DePalma wants to remake The Birds and add multiple cats in the third act, for a birdie bloodbath.
One time -- this was back before my family discovered that we are actually dog people -- our cat got in a war with a flock of birds. Man, those birds were loud. Feathers everywhere. No blood, though, so G-rated.
Catwoman vs Howard the Duck
That "Cassandra Cat" movie, from which the "Cat Movies" still is taken, is crazy! The central set piece where the magical cat exposes the townspeople's secrets by turning them different colors, resulting in a madly colored dance sequence/melee, really must be seen, but the whole movie is very entertaining.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
I've been skimming reviews of the movie and get the impression that the book is worse than the movie.
I didn't say I've read it twice!
Hemingway said of Algren something like "He'll hit you hard and move you around pretty good."
Algren tried to be what Hemingway might have been is he'd been able to just let his manliness out and not be such a pussy(cat) Algren is kind of overpowering and exaggerated
John Henry
Here's Capucine in "The Pink Panther."
Couldn't they have given the amputee a wheelchair or prostheses? Well, they didn't have him crawling on the floor so that's a positive step for dual leg amputees. Baby steps forward in Hollywood's depiction of the handicapped.....
Which movie won the 1946 Oscar for Best Picture? What was so unusual about the actor in that move who won an Oscar for Best Actor in a Supporting Role?
She's pretty and quite likable in "North to Alaska", one of her less important movies.
I think the literary consensus is that Algren peaked with "Man With the Golden Arm" in 1949. "Walk on the Wild Side" followed in 1956, to much less critical acclaim (but to considerable commercial success).
The title "Walk on the Wild Side" was inspired by Hank Thompson's 1952 hit song "The Wild Side of Life" which was "answered" later in 1952 by Kitty Wells' "It Wasn't God Who Made Honky Tonk Angels."
Best Cat actors? The one in "Breakfast at Tiffneys", the other in "The long goodbye" and of course the winner: "That darn Cat".
As for Algren, I read him based on Heminway's recommendation, and he didn't make an impression. That's before I understood that other novelists grade other writers baed on the Language and style. And their ability to write some hard to describe action or emotion and make it seem entertaining or real.
They're much less interested in plot and characters. which is what average readers like me care a lot about.
Jane Fonda gets started.
@traditionalguy, her first Oscar was for “Klute,” where she played a whore. She was not cast against type.
'Capucine was beautiful, in my opinion...'
She was stunning.
Some great photos of her around...
But I have a type...
"Best Cat actors? The one in "Breakfast at Tiffneys", the other in "The long goodbye" and of course the winner: "That darn Cat"."
"That Darn Cat" is in this Criterion "Cat Movie" collection.
Had to click on the link to see Capucine. Beautiful. Sad cat reference:
On 17 March 1990, at age 62, Capucine jumped to her death from her eighth-floor apartment in Lausanne, Vaud, Switzerland, where she had lived for 28 years, having reportedly suffered from illness and depression for some time..Neighbours said she had led a reclusive life with her three cats...
I tried Googling “Capuchine.” I never did get a link to the actress, but I got a lot of pictures of wierd-looking pigeons and some monkeys.
I watched the clip of Capucine in the Pink Panther that Ann linked to. I was quite amused at the scene in the elevator where she changes out of her disguise: she removes her wig and replaces it with a turban, reverses her coat, removes her collar... all things which significantly change here appearance. But then, she also takes off her pumps and pulls out a different pair of nearly identical pumps except a shade darker (to match her darker dress).
As if any of the men chasing her would have noticed this slight difference in her shoes! How French!
@Joe Smith, those eyes. A man could lose himself forever in those eyes.
In 1962 I had just gotten my driver’s license, but a movie titled “A Walk on the Wild Side” is not something I would have had the guts to take my date to. I have no recollection of having seen it, but there were lot of other good movies to choose from in 1962: “The Longest Day,” “The Manchurian Candidate,” “Hatari,” “How the West Was Won,” and “Lawrence of Arabia,” among other notable films. (N.B., I would not have taken a date to see “Lolita,” either.)
Speaking of insults (is there an insult tag?) I just ran across this gem, in Margaret MacMillan's "The War That Ended Peace." Russian Foreign Minister Izvolsky, when he was a dapper little social climber, proposed marriage to a well-connected widow, who turned him down.
After he became a success she was asked if she ever regretted her decision. She replied,
"Yes, every day. But every night I congratulate myself."
I see by the clip you show of Criterion's Cat Movies, that they list "Inside Llewyn Davis" as one of their 'cat movies'. I remember seeing "Inside Llewyn Davis" and feeling like it had to be the longest movie ever made. In fact, I think it's still going on in one of our TVs, in a side room. We had to remove it from the living room. We got a new TV for the living room just to get "Inside Llewyn Davis" out of our face. It would not end. Like a guest who visits for a few days and then decides to stay for another week. We put them in the 'extra' guest room. The one where "Inside Llewyn Davis" is always playing, always saying nothing much to you. And smiling.
Wait!
Keanu is awesome.
Joe Smith said...
'Capucine was beautiful, in my opinion...'
The photo at the link looks like Faye Dunaway. I know it’s not but they have a similar look. So sad she committed suicide. As much as I don’t care for old beauties with that stretched face, big lips look - maybe cosmetic surgery is a life saver.
Hot pussy - and the message of love
Animal cruelty is for losers.
The Aristocats had heroic felines. That Disney film probably got made just to see if the title could get past the executives without being compared to the punchline of the dirtiest joke ever told.
“ IF you want to watch a GREAT Barbara Stanwyck movie, watch Baby Face ”
It just so happens I watched that twice about a month ago.
Night Nurse too.
"For the uninitiated: DEI is just the credentialed, bureaucratic version of Al Sharpton's old shakedown routine. They are both rotten and should be resisted."
-Rufo
Good heavens! That scene is Camptastic!
I "collect" random cat scenes. There's a cat that goes flying across the screen for no particular reason in Giant that's pretty amazing, like, why is this here? Blofeld's cat in You Only Live Twice is something else (poor thing hid in the set for a week, apparently, after his big scene).
Inside Llewyn Davis is great. So is That Darn Cat.
"Good heavens! That scene is Camptastic! "
Ha ha. Exactly.
"Inside Llewyn Davis is great. So is That Darn Cat."
I want to rewatch Inside Llewyn Davis. The character reminds me of some people I have known. As for That Darn Cat, I watched a little of it last night, but I snapped it off when Dean Jones sneezed. I don't think sneezing is funny and I was not going to put up with a running joke of his cat allergy.
By the way, I also loathe when characters vomit in movies.
And I acknowledge that there is a small pool of vomit at one point in Inside Llewyn Davis.
"I don't think sneezing is funny and I was not going to put up with a running joke of his cat allergy."
LOL. Don't watch taking Pendlam 123 with Matthau - a character sneezes and wheezes all through the movie and comes to a bad end because of it.
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