Something Wild (1961 film)

Carroll Baker in Something Wild

Mary Ann Robinson, a teenaged girl attending college in New York City, is brutally raped while walking in a park near her home in the Bronx. Traumatized by the experience, Mary Ann washes away all the evidence and destroys her clothing. She hides the rape from her mother and stepfather, with whom she has an already 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. This results in the police escorting 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. There she rents a room from a sinister-looking landlord. She takes a job at a five and ten store, where her coworkers dislike her because she is distant and unfriendly. Her crude, promiscuous neighbor, Shirley, at the rooming house is rebuffed when she offers to "introduce" Mary to her male friends.

Overwhelmed at her job after her co-workers play a prank on her, Mary Ann walks across the Manhattan Bridge and almost jumps into the East River, but she is stopped by a mechanic, Mike. 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 now says that he wants Mary Ann to stay there, 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, though she refuses to have anything to do with him.

One night, Mike proposes to Mary Ann and she rejects him, saying she just cannot. He again attempts to be physical with her. Mary Ann reveals to Mike that she was the one who blinded him in one eye. Mike still insists he needs her. 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 (if by Mike or the rape is not revealed). Her mother insists that she come home, while Mary Ann tries to impress upon her mother that she now considers the apartment her home.

Jack Garfein had made his debut as film director with End as a Man (1957). He formed a company, Prometheus Productions, with his wife Carroll Baker. It obtained film rights to Mary Ann, the first novel of Alex Karmel, published in 1958. Karmel and Garfein wrote the script, and United Artists agreed to finance. It was originally called Something Wild in the City.[4]

The score for the 1961 film was by the distinguished American composer Aaron Copland, who in 1964 reused some of its themes in his symphonic work "Music For a Great City". The original film score, taken from private session recordings preserved by the director, was released on CD in 2003. Morton Feldman was originally commissioned to compose the score, but when Garfein heard the music, he reportedly said, "My wife is being raped and you write celesta music?" and promptly replaced Feldman with Aaron Copland.

The opening title sequence was created by Saul Bass. Bass' title sequence might have been an influence on the creators of the 1983 documentary Koyaanisqatsi, as it features very similar sped-up city imagery.

Director of photography Eugen Schüfftan was a noted German cinematographer and inventor of the Schüfftan process who went on to win the Academy Award for Best Cinematography the following year for The Hustler. The film was shot on location in New York City, which was rare at the time.

The supporting cast included two actresses who later played iconic television sitcom mothers, though they did not appear together in any scenes. Jean Stapleton, playing Mary Ann's boisterous rooming-house neighbor, went on to star as Edith Bunker in All in the Family and its spinoff/successor show, Archie Bunker's Place. Doris Roberts, portraying Mary Ann's store co-worker (in Roberts' film debut, although she had previously done television work).

Something Wild had its theatrical premiere at the Plaza Theatre in New York City on December 20, 1961.[5]

The film was released for the first time on DVD as part of the MGM Limited Edition Collection in December 2011. The Criterion Collection released the film on Blu-ray and DVD on January 17, 2017.[9]

• List of American films of 1961

• Something Wild at IMDb
• Musical score recording on YouTube
• Something Wild: Last Chances an essay by Sheila O’Malley at the Criterion Collection