Wild Girl

Wild Girl

1932. USA. Directed by Raoul Walsh. Screenplay by Doris Anderson, Edwin Justus Mayer. With Charles Farrell, Joan Bennett, Ralph Bellamy, Eugene Pallette, Irving Pichel. Raoul Walsh infuses a creaky vehicle with Kickapoo Joy Juice in this sensationally entertaining western romance, adapted from an oft-produced play based on the Bret Harte story “Salome Jane’s Kiss.” Introducing MoMA’s newly preserved print at Bologna’s annual Il Cinema Ritrovato festival, Dave Kehr called The Wild Girl “a significant rediscovery, an affectionate parody of the silent westerns Walsh himself made as a young director [that] evolves into a lyrical romance filmed with tenderness and sincerity.” And, we might add, a rowdy, near-vaudevillian sense of humor, thanks to its energetic cast—headed by a young Joan Bennett—not to mention an underlying sense of scenic grandeur and heady verticality, having been largely filmed on location in California’s Sequoia National Park. Preserved by The Museum of Modern Art with support from the Celeste Bartos Fund for Film Preservation and the National Endowment for the Arts. 80 min.