Something Wild

Plot synopsis:
Adapted from the 1958 novel Mary Ann by Alex Karmel, Something Wild tells the story of Mary Ann Robinson (Carroll Baker), a 19-year-old junior college student living in The Bronx, New York, who is attacked by a rapist while walking home late one evening. When she gets home, the devastated Mary Ann vigorously bathes herself, then meticulously shreds all the clothes she was wearing and flushes the pieces down the toilet. She crawls into bed.In the morning, Mary Ann tries to carry on as though everything were normal. She doesn't tell her shrill, overbearing mother, (Mildred Dunnock), or her well-meaning but decidedly ineffectual stepfather (Charles Watts) what happened. Mary Ann leaves for school, but the press of bodies on the crowded subway is too much for her, and she faints after she steps off the train. A police officer brings Mary Ann back home, where she's put to bed.Mary Ann's mother, Mrs. Gates, doesn't understand what's wrong with her daughter, who has become oddly distant. Mary Ann makes it to school the next day, but is still so overwhelmed by the attack that she wanders away and roams New York City. She ends up renting a room at a seedy lodging house and also gets a job at a five-and-ten-cent store.An extremely worried Mrs. Gates, having reported her daughter's disappearance, goes back to the police to see if they've found her. They think they have, but the young blonde woman in custody turns out not to be Mary Ann. Mrs. Gates is distraught.With a new place to live and a job to go to, Mary Ann keeps to herself, rebuffing attempts by her somewhat crude but cheerful rooming-house neighbor, Shirley (Jean Stapleton), and her co-workers to be sociable. The store workers think Mary Ann is stuck up, and taunt her by deliberately crowding in on her, causing her to suffer a panic attack. Mary Ann dashes back to the rooming house, where she gets sick in the bathroom. That night, as it's raining, Mary Ann is awakened by the sounds of Shirley raucously entertaining a young man in her room. Mary Ann staggers outside, only to be frightened by the sight of a sleeping homeless man. She goes back in.The next day, Mary Ann, consumed by despair, wanders over to the Manhattan Bridge. She tries to crawl over the railing to throw herself into the East River, but is suddenly yanked back by Mike (Ralph Meeker), a garage mechanic who happened to be passing by. "Don't try to jump again!" he sternly tells her. Mary Ann says she won't. Mike insists she come with him, and Mary Ann follows him to his dingy basement apartment not far from the bridge. Mike suggests she get some rest; after he leaves, Mary Ann lies down on an extra cot and falls asleep.Mary Ann wakes up to find Mike preparing supper for her. He offers to let her stay a while to recover, and Mary Ann, touched by his kindness, accepts.Mike returns home later that night, drunk. He clumsily tries to embrace Mary Ann, who screams and pushes him down. Mike crawls toward Mary Ann, who kicks him in the face. Mike falls down, unconscious. Mary Ann tries to leave, but the door is locked.Mike wakes up the next morning with no memory of what happened the night before. The kick to the face has caused Mike to lose the sight in his left eye; he thinks it happened because of a bar fight.Mary Ann begs Mike to let her leave. Mike wants her to stay, and says he's willing to pay her whatever she was earning at the five-and-ten. He refuses to let her go, feeling that she owes her life to him. "Why do you want me to stay?" she asks. Mike replies, "You're my last chance." Mary Ann is trapped.Days pass. Mike, who's taken to wearing an eyepatch, goes to work during the day, leaving Mary Ann locked up in the apartment.At one point, Mary Ann has a nightmare. She dreams she's in an art museum, where she sees a group of schoolgirls -- one of whom is her younger self -- laughing at a painting of a deer hunt. The girls' faces turn blank; they appear to be laughing at Mary Ann, who dashes out. She runs through a park and past a bush when suddenly the rapist reaches out and grabs her. Mary Ann wakes up screaming.Mike continues trying to woo Mary Ann. He prepares a special dinner, then suddenly proposes to her. A shocked Mary Ann says she can't marry him -- "You don't know who I am!" Mike makes clear he wants to make love to Mary Ann, who backs away in panic. "Stay away from me!" she frantically tells him before breaking down and confessing that she was the one who caused him to lose his left eye. Mike remembers what happened. He again refuses to let Mary Ann go, telling her: "I still need you." Mike leaves. Mary Ann sobs helplessly -- until she notices that Mike has failed to close the door behind him. She grabs her coat and rushes out.It's nighttime in Manhattan. The newly freed Mary Ann roams the brightly lighted avenues and ends up in Central Park, where she falls asleep.Mary Ann wakes up the next morning, and as she continues walking through the city, she rediscovers how wonderful life -- and people -- can be. Her demons finally at rest, Mary Ann ends up back at Mike's flat to find him sitting alone, despondent. He looks up and asks why she came back. Mary Ann replies, "I came for you." They kiss.Several months later, Mrs. Gates gets a letter from Mary Ann. She hurries over to Mike's place and finds out that not only is her daughter alive, she's married to Mike and expecting a baby. Mrs. Gates demands that Mary Ann come home with her, but Mary Ann insists, "This is my home!" Realizing she can't change her daughter's mind, a bewildered Mrs. Gates asks: "What's happened?" Mary Ann serenely replies, "What's happened has happened, Mother." Mrs. Gates accepts her daughter's decision and embraces her.

Tags: melodrama

Review:
An offbeat, oddly moving film in which Carroll Baker plays a young victim of rape.
Although the crime goes unnamed in this 1961 movie, the pain and anguish suffered by Baker's character, Mary Ann, are candidly as well as sensitively handled.
And while the film can only hint at Mary Ann's thoughts (unlike the book on which it was based), Baker gives a touching performance as the victim who tries to deny the crime by erasing all physical traces of it, and then seeking to lose herself in the jungle of New York City, only to find herself trapped in the apartment of a supposed Good Samaritan played by Ralph Meeker.
Legendary American composer Aaron Copland has added a grand (perhaps too grand) musical score; Eugen Schüfftan's crisp black & white cinematography and the extensive use of New York City locations add to this drama.
Director Jack Garfien, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Alex Karmel from Karmel's novel "Mary Ann", and his wife, actress Carroll Baker, put everything on the line for this production, but it didn't connect with audiences at the time.
Baker and Ralph Meeker have intriguing chemistry, though the premise--that the mechanic keeps the girl like a wounded pet in his little hovel--is often creepy instead of romantic (although I'm not sure of the actual intention here).
Even as a young girl I was haunted by Carole Baker's character, not understanding exactly what had happened to her, but realizing that the love she developed with Ralph Meeker was somehow sad, but sweet and deeply emotional at the same time.
There is an excellent score by Aaron Copland, which was later released as "Symphony for a Great City." Since this was a low-budget movie, one really has to wonder how much he was paid to score this film.
Carroll Baker is lovingly lit throughout the whole picture(thanks to Director and then husband Jack Garfein)amidst the alternate squalor and splendor of America's greatest city.The brutal rape of Miss Baker's character within the first 5 minutes of the movie is depicted with surprising frankness for its time.
Yet another example that The Hays Code was becoming by 1961 an historical document not reflecting the current mood of what the North American movie public was indeed mature enough to view on the silver screen.I really enjoyed the kitchen sink realism of this picture, from the cattiness of the girls at Woolworth's against fellow worker Miss Baker(Doris Roberts nails her part for all it's worth) to the good natured slovenliness of Jean Stapleton's next door neighbor in the tenement slum.Ralph Meeker(every man's meat&potatoes actor)is Carroll Baker's 'knight in shining armor' in this movie.
I knew right away it would have to be a truly great film to be ignored for 40 years by the same American movie-going public who turned Kazan's ridiculously overrated "On the Waterfront" into a multi Oscar winner, gave George Stevens an Oscar for the awful "Giant," and made their greatest director (Orson Welles), a commercial failure and an exile.
Well I finally saw this thing yesterday, in pristine form and on the huge screen of the Egyptian theatre in Hollywood, thanks to the American Cinamateque, and all my suspicions and predictions were comfirmed: it's not only a masterpiece but one of the most idiosyncratic American films ever made; better than any pre-East-of-Eden Kazan film and featuring an astounding performace from Carroll Baker, and a brilliantly bizzare and understated one from Ralph Meeker.
The film's pace is slow and methodical, frustrating ALL audience expectations and conditioning in the best Antonioni style (you can clearly tell Garfein's seen "L'Avventura" and "La Notte" a few times), and revealing insights and truths that would be completely obzcured otherwise.
The cinematography is by Eugen Shuftan, the same guy who shot Fritz Lang's famous silent film "Metropolis" and it's expressionistic to the max, providing further contrast and counterpoint, a 'poetic touch' to the realistic method acting employed in the film.Some people might think that the entire film is absurd and no rape victim would refuse to say anything about her rape and then fall in love and marry a crazy mechanic who locks her in an apartment, but they forget one point: Meeker doesn't know (because he was drunk out of his mind) that he violated Baker's trust and when Baker mentions that she was the one who kicked him in the eye, he realizes his inpropriety, becomes patient, and leaves the door unlocked.
Furthermore, the reason Meeker locks Baker in the room in the beginning is partly to prevent her from another 'blacked-out' suicide attempt, because he loves her and doesn't want to lose her.
One can only hope that Jack Garfein (the director, who was married to Carroll Baker at the time) makes the further effort of getting MGM/UA or whoever owns the original negative of this film, to transfer it to a good DVD to give people a chance to rediscover one of the great American films some 40 years after its initial release to commerical failure: "Something Wild.".
This strange little-known film directed by Carroll Baker's then-husband Jack Garfein stays with you, even with some pseudo-depressive situations popping up every other scene.
Carroll Baker made some of my favorite films of that time, and her then husband Jack Garfein, who co- wrote and directed, brings a tragic personal biography to his work.
Ralph Meeker, a very fine actor who never got the roles and acclaim he should have is superb in this as a character I've never seen before in any film.
Filmed in moody black and white with a jumpy early-60's score by Aaron Copland, a young Carroll Baker plays a college student raped on her way home from school one Spring evening in a scene being racy for its time.
The rape triggers an anxiety neurosis of some kind and Baker suddenly seeks to escape her domineering mother by running away into the depths of New York City, renting a room in a seedy boarding house and getting a menial job at the local Woolworth's.
I think it is fair to say that some viewers will be disturbed by the story, which is about a young woman, Mary Ann (Carroll Baker, wife of the director), victimized and despairing, who meets a young man, Mike (Ralph Meeker), whose agenda is unclear.The pathway from despair to hope, or false hope, is examined by this film in a dramatic and unconventional way.
New York City plays its role as the vast backdrop to this dark tale.One final note: Though they are only connected by the riveting performances of Ms. Baker, if you like this film, you may like "Baby Doll"--another distinctive and artistically risky film..
This story becomes more complicated as Mary wanders around the City of New York working in a Five & Dime Store and then going up on the Manhattan Bridge and doing away with her life.
This is a very well directed film and Ralph Meeker, (Mike) gave a great supporting role along with Jean Stapleton, "All in the Family TV Star".
His is the performance that resonates, with his inscrutable character managing to underscore and magnify Baker's fragility and alienation.And the scenes filmed outside the apartment have a surreal yet gritty quality to them, as if the place where humanity (both real and imagined) dwells is not connected in any way to the dingy apartment Mike and Maryann inhabit.
I am glad to see that now, the film has many followers, sad that poor Ralph never really made it "big time" despite his talent and that it was Carroll Baker, not Tuesday Weld, playing the female lead.The films end was a bit confusing for the under 15 set, but I truly enjoyed the film and this set me on a life long trek, seeking the thought provoking type of films that I still enjoy.I remember Carroll standing at the bridge, trying to summon the strength to throw herself in the river.
I think both Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker did good work.
Carroll Baker's Mary Ann Robinson had to get over her rape and Ralph Meeker had to find redemption for something in his past.
"Something Wild" follows Mary Ann (Carroll Baker), a young woman attending college who is raped in a park near her home in the Bronx.
One day, in a panic, she attempts to jump off the Manhattan bridge, but is stopped by a burly mechanic (Ralph Meeker) who takes her in—but doesn't let her go.More or less left out of the history books aside from a small number of devotees, "Something Wild" is one of the weirder films Carroll Baker made (aside from her Italian giallo career, which is an entirely other story).
However, unlike Baker's Mary Ann, Meeker's Mike comes across more like a plot contrivance than a real person, which appears to be the fault of the script.Anyway, in my view, the film's strictly a matter of taste.
The two actors, Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker, certainly are game, but I was uncomfortable with the second half of the film both times that I watched it.
And Saul Bass, the legendary film-title maven ("The Man With The Golden Arm," "Vertigo," "Psycho," and scores of others), created the riveting opening-title sequence, a wordless narrative of a day in the life of New York City, from dawn to night-time, that, playing off against Copland's glaring music, is a miniature film masterpiece in itself.Garfein's then-wife, actress Carroll Baker, who had attained star status in 1956's "Baby Doll," plays the troubled protagonist, Bronx-dwelling college student Mary Ann Robinson, who lives in a quiet white-bread neighborhood with her whiny, self-absorbed mother (Mildred Dunnock) and her benign but oblivious stepfather (Charles Watts, no relation to the Rolling Stones drummer of almost identical name).
The story begins at the end of the aforementioned title sequence, as a New York subway train disgorges passengers in the Bronx, one of whom is Mary Ann. Walking on a deserted pathway in a park, she becomes victim to a sexual predator.
Her new life is hardly more bearable than the old one she so abruptly abandoned: her leering, penny-pinching landlord (Martin Koslek), her sluttish rooming house neighbor (pre-Edith Bunker Jean Stapleton in a brilliant turn as a vulgar good-time girl), and her bullying coworkers (who don't appreciate her introverted lack of sociability and bonhomie) led by one particular trouble-maker (pre-"Seinfeld"/"Everybody Loves Raymond" Doris Roberts), and her tawdry surroundings all conspire to multiply her misery.Wandering the streets after a sleepless night, she comes close to throwing herself off the Manhattan Bridge (Schüfftan's superb cinematography makes the points of early-morning sunlight reflecting off the East River look like sharp, deadly spikes), only to be roughly stopped from doing so by the gruff Mike, who spirits her back to his own claustrophobic basement apartment nearby.
Mary Ann Robinson (Carroll Baker) lives in the Bronx with her domineering mother (Mildred Dunnock) and stepfather.
This unusual film mixes the dreamlike with the gritty: a young college student, Mary-Anne is cruelly raped and, after trying to purge herself by taking a bath (washing/showering is a common first reaction among rape victims), finds herself unable to articulate or cope with the experience, instead losing interest in her studies and unable to communicate with her fussy, rather difficult mother.
There is effective technique here: Mary-Anne's anxiety after her attack is filmed in a dream-like, perhaps surrealistic way as, scared and alienated, she wanders New York's streets ( the shots of the city c.
Haunting, Avant-Garde, and occasionally Surreal Anti-Hollywood Movie from the Early Sixties failed to get noticed in its initial release despite Carol Baker's Notoriety, mostly from a similar Film with a lurid, controversial, and sensational subject matter, Elia Kazan's Baby Doll (1957).Directed by Her then Husband, Stage Director Jack Garfein, and Co-Starring the prolific but curiously obscure Method Actor Ralph Meeker, this is a "Strange One" indeed.
The first hour of this moody, sometimes self-consciously arty effort by writer/director Jack Garfein is generally fine, with a touching, shell-shocked Mary Ann (Carroll Baker) caught in an emotional limbo after being raped.
Sweet Mary Ann Robinson (Carroll Baker) is raped by a man one night while going home.
Then she meets Mike (Ralph Meeker) and things get REAL strange.An early art film dealing with a very touchy subject for 1961.
It has its good points--Baker and Meeker give great performances and there's some beautiful cinematography of NYC.
The music score is too loud and far too intrusive for a movie dealing with rape and, frankly, this just ends up being a dull film.
The plot of this movie and Arron Copland's music leave a lot to be desired.The four stars are for the acting in general, which was good, but especially for Jean Stapleton, a real New Yorker and a gifted and talented actress.
that she worked in, and her walking on a bridge, and then Mike saving her life, he taking her home to his little apartment, and she was so scared of him, because of the rape experience, and then he came home drunk, and kind of wanted to pet her, and she kicked him in the eye, this was such a great movie, remember at the end of the movie she went home to see her mother, and her and Mike had married, and she had a baby.
I would give a kidney to get this on DVD, I think this movie was so great in black and white, which I actually prefer to watch, and it showed NY as such a bustling and busy place, and this girl was just lost, and yet this man came out of nowhere to save her life, Ralph Meeker was so great in his role, I saw where he died in 1988 of a heart attack, he was such a find actor, too.
The two lead actors, Carroll Baker and Ralph Meeker, are just excellent in this film.
Miss Baker showed great range and depth in her portrayal of a young woman named Mary Ann, living at home with her domineering mother, who encounters the dark side of New York City one night in the form of a hulking assailant who drags her off the street and brutally rapes her.
Meeker's character is Mike, a lonely garage mechanic who sees in Mary Ann a fellow lost soul.
This film is a powerful example of what cinema can be but rarely is--a primarily visual art form--and with due acknowledgement of the fine efforts of Ralph Meeker and Carroll Baker, the real star of the film is New York City itself, which has rarely been captured with such magical realism as it is here.
Filmed in black/white and makes you focus on the story, the characters, backdrop and interactions.It showcases what happened to the primary character after she is raped, moves out of her well-to-do family's controlling home, and comes close to committing suicide.Each event drives her to go inside herself, try to run away in a manner of speaking from her family and from her life.She may have gone down a very different path had she not been raped, yet she felt so much shame and isolation and could not turn to to anyone to talk about it.
But when Baker leaves home the story goes off into the unbelievable.Carroll is a young college student who is attacked and raped on her way home one night.
It made me jumpy to watch it.The female lead Carroll Baker is attacked and raped on her way home one night.
Directed by Jack Garfein, it stars his wife, Carroll Baker, Ralph Meeker, and Mildred Dunnock.
The censorship of the day was buckling under the pressure.None put more pressure on it than "Something Wild".Pale, beautiful Carroll Baker, whose role in "Baby Doll" forewarned audiences to be ready for anything, plays Mary Ann, a college student who lives at home with her demanding mother.
As her pain reaches the breaking point, she is stopped from committing suicide by Mike, a passing stranger played by Ralph Meeker.Just when you think Mary Ann's problems couldn't get any worse, they do - Mike keeps her imprisoned in his basement apartment.
For audiences that may have just seen "Breakfast at Tiffany's" or "Westside Story", there was stuff in "Something Wild" that would have stopped them munching on their popcorn mid-munch.The resolution to the film is also a surprise when Mary Anne and Mike end up together - Stockholm syndrome in 1961?
Carroll Baker spends all of the film confused, dazed and suicide-prone following her being raped on her way home from school one night.
Her suicide attempt is thwarted by Ralph Meeker, who takes her to his home and then refuses to let her out.There is a good performance by Mildred Dunnock, who co-starred with Baker in "Baby Doll." Dunnock is her usual overwhelming self, flustered, and even bigoted in the film.
We see her entertaining a guy in her apartment, drunk and carrying on.We see the seamy side of New York City in buildings where just about no one would even want to walk by, yet alone live in.Ralph Meeker's character as the loner who comes into Baker's life is not fully developed here..
Director Jack Garfein and star Carroll Baker have created a near pantomime of a film.
The Life You Save May Be Your Own. After hopping off a New York City subway, nubile young Carroll Baker (as Mary Ann Robinson) heads home for the evening.
Soon, lonely mechanic Ralph Meeker (as Mike) saves Baker from suicide, but holds her prisoner in his apartment...Director Jack Garfein and star/wife Baker might have had success with a much more surrealistic "Something Wild", which has some memorable sets and locations, and is ably photographed by Eugen Schüfftan.
(Some Spoilers) Coming home from school one evening pretty collage student Mary-Ann, Carroll Baker, is brutally attacked and raped from a man hiding in the bushes.
As for Mary-Ann she did overcome her fear of men, because of being raped, as well as life due to her wild and crazy relationship with Mike.