Rent Walk on the Wild Side (1962)

Women, Cats and the Crescent CIty - Walk on the Wild Side review by griggs

Saul Bass’ opening credits—all slinking cat and prowling jazz—promise a film far more dangerous than what follows, but Edward Dymtryk’s Walk on the Wild Side still has its charms. It’s a sultry, Southern melodrama where the women run the show and the men mostly sweat, sulk or stumble.

Jane Fonda lights up the screen, all sharp edges and restless energy, while Barbara Stanwyck exudes icy authority as the brother madam who treats power like perfume—cool, intoxicating, and just a little poisonous. Laurence Harvey, as the wondering idealist Dove Linkhorn with the women’s cunning or complexity. The New Orleans setting lingers beautifully, later echoed in Jarmusch’s Down by Law, though the story itself never quite matches its own heat.

It’s a “women’s picture” through and through, and when the smoke clears, it’s Fonda who offers the only glimmer of hope—a survivor’s spark in a world built to snuff it out.