Something Wild 1961

     Mary Ann Robinson is an attractive young woman living in The Bronx, New York.  She’s attending City College and she lives with her parents.  Her mother is neurotic and overbearing.  Her stepfather goes to work and comes home.  Mary is walking home and she is attacked when a man drags her into the woods.  She stays there in the woods for a time and then she goes home.  She lets herself into the house very quietly and she takes a bath.  She uses scissors to cut every piece of clothing she was wearing into small bits and she flushes them down the toilet.  She doesn’t tell anyone what happened.  She takes the subway to college the next day but there are too many people pressing against her.  She faints and a police car takes her home.  Her mother finds this to be very embarrassing and mortifying!!

     Mary changes everything about her life and her parents don’t know where she is or what she’s doing.  Mary is going through a lot of psychological changes without any support system.  Actually, she is suffering from post-traumatic shock disorder but no one knows anything about this problem in this time period.  She can’t tell her parents, they will never think of her in the same way again?  She can’t continue going to college like she had been doing either?  She wants to curl up into a ball and never have contact or be with people again if there is a way to do this?   3 ½* (I liked this movie)

113 min, Drama directed by Jack Garfein with Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker Mildred Dunnock, Jean Stapleton, Martin Kosleck, Charles Watts, Cliton James, George L. Smith, Doris Roberts, Ken Chapin, Anita Cooper, Ginny Baker.

Note:  Imdb 6.9 out of 10, 43% critic 45% audience on Rotten Tomatoes, TCM average user rating 3.3* out of 5*, Amazon 3.9* out of 5* with 67 reviews, Slant Magazine 5* out of 5*, Blu-ray HighDef Digest 4* out of 5*.

Special Note:  Filmed in New York City, New York.  Carroll Baker was married to director Jack Garfein at the time of filming but they divorced in 1969.  Baker said that the production company wouldn’t pay Aaron Copland’s fee for the score.  Baker and Garfein paid him instead.  Baker appeared in How the West Was Won of 1962 and Station Six-Sahara of 1963 afterwards to make up the money they spent.  Copeland used re-arranged music from one of his concert performances as the score for this film.  Later, it was published in 1964 as Music for a Great City.  This is the first film for Doris Roberts and she and a long career.  There is another film with the same title from 1986.