LGM Film Club, Part 354: Wild Girl

I recently checked out Raoul Walsh’s 1932 film Wild Girl, starring Joan Bennett. It’s not very good. The film starts with a big mammy scene and goes back to the racism repeatedly. It’s so hard to watch. The location is great–right in the middle of Sequoia National Park. So that’s cool. The plot, based on a Bret Harte story, is a somewhat complicated story that revolve around the wild girl, named Salome of course, and all the violent men around her. She finally falls in love with an ex-Confederate soldier (of course) who kills the creepy scumbag murderer who has become the political boss of the town and so revolves around saving him. I hate to give it away, but you know they are going to end up together. Oh wait, SPOILER ALERT!!!, was that supposed to come first? Anyway, it’s pretty dumb. Plus the racism. Definitely not the Walsh film that holds up the best. White Heat and The Roaring Twenties are aeons better.

The whole thing is available so, you know, go for it if you want.