Sunday, June 10, 2012

Movie review - "The Wild and the Innocent" (1959) **

Audie Murphy and Sandra Dee aren't one of the most famous screen teams but they go together okay - Murphy is a little too old for the role (and her) really but his Texas drawl shyness is used to good effect here as a trapper innocent in the ways of the world who heads into town to sell some things. He is accompanied by a young woman (Dee) whose no-good dad tried to sell her. Both are overwhelmed by life in the big smoke (well, so it seems to them even though it's only a town), and both are tempted by sexy figures - Murphy to "dance hall" girl Joanne Dru, and Dee to sheriff and owner of the dance hall Gilbert Roland. Roland seems enamoured of Dee but wants her to work in his dance hall.

The jokes aren't much but it does have a charm. It's technically a Western but there's not a lot of action - a little shot out here and there, a brawl. Mostly it's hillbillies looking bug eyed at the fair on a holiday, getting ripped off and being innocent of sex - I kept thinking of Ah, Wilderness, North to Alaska or even Hound Dog Man. Murphy's pursuit of Dru is quite touching - at least he has Dee as a back up. The sexual politics are unsurprisingly dodgy - Murphy has the option of buying Dee who cleans herself up and falls for him, then is determined to nab him; later on he rescues her from the dance hall. Jim Backus is in the support cast.

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