Walk on the Wild Side

A prowling black cat taking a 'walk on the wild side' creates the brilliant promise of Saul Bass' famous credit sequence. The rest just doesn't match it, despite the tale of passion: Laurence Harvey seeking his former love (Capucine), now a high-class 'harlot' for 'Madame' Barbara Stanwyck, who is also in love with her; meanwhile a full-blooded Anne Baxter and a raunchy Jane Fonda succumb to Harvey's moralising Texan. If Dmytryk had only concentrated more on the women instead of the dull central male, this might have been a superb dark work, not just a fairly steamy melodrama. Still, it certainly has its moments.