The Wild Party (1974)
Director: James Ivory
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Based on the bizarre narrative poem by Joseph Moncure March which celebrates the decadence of the Roaring Twenties in cheerful Kiplingesque doggerel, this tells of a chubby silent comedian who throws a Hollywood shindig that ends in murder. No doubt to emphasise the titillating (but misleading) echoes of the Fatty Arbuckle scandal, the film was originally released in Britain in a version cut and 'rearranged' by American International. Coming on like a sexploiter but failing to deliver, this naturally died the death. Ivory's original cut is a delightful tour de force, choreographed entirely around the serpentine party which represents the fading comedian's last desperate bid for success and happiness, but which ends by swallowing its own wild tail. An acid-tinted elegy for the Dream factory, it features some fine musical numbers and wonderfully baroque settings, but also takes a look at the skull beneath the skin just as the extravagance, the glamour, and the licence were beginning to wear thin under pressure from the coming of sound and of Hays Code censorship.Author: TM
Cast & crew
Director: James Ivory
Producer: Ismail Merchant
Cast: James Coco, Raquel Welch, Perry King, Tiffany Bolling, Royal Dano, David Dukes, Dena Dietrich, Jennifer Lee full cast
Duration: 100 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.



What do you think?
Post your review now