Wild in the Country *** (1961, Elvis Presley, Tuesday Weld, Hope Lange, Millie Perkins, John Ireland, Gary Lockwood) – Classic Movie Review 2713

Director Philip Dunne’s 1961 film drama Wild in the Country marks the moment when playwright Clifford Odets takes on Elvis Presley as interpreter of his literate screenplay based on the 1958 novel The Lost Country by J R Salamanca.

Before his MGM family musical era, Elvis goes all serious and dramatic in this liberal-minded story of Glenn Tyler, a troubled and wayward Shenandoah country guy from a dysfunctional family who wants to be a writer and pursue a literary career. After Glenn gets into a fight with, and badly injures his drunken brother, the court releases him on probation into the care of his uncle in a small town.

Glenn confesses to pretty, court-appointed widowed psychological counsellor Irene Sperry (Hope Lange) that he is ‘carrying a cupful of anger and trying not to spill it’, but, as played by The King, he is more mild than wild.

It’s a bit of a schlep for Elvis to portray the troubled writer Glenn Tyler, but he works at it hard enough in an earnest, sincere performance.

Acting-wise, Tuesday Weld makes the best impression as Mrs Noreen Martin, the small-town girl aiming big, while nice, home body Betty Lee Parsons (Millie Perkins) is the third girl in babe magnet Elvis’s complicated love life.

Of course, to please the fans, Presley has to sing several gratuitous but pleasant songs (‘I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell’, ‘In My Way’, and ‘Husky Dusky Day’) with the vintage title track ‘Wild in the Country’ (by Hugo Peretti, Luigi Creatore and George Weiss) especially pleasing. Basically, there is only one song serenade per female star character, plus the title track. But that is a weight round the film’s neck and only makes the rest of this unlikely plot seem even less credible.

It helps that there is a solid Jerry Wald Productions /20th Century Fox studio production, with fine widescreen colour cinematography by William C Mellor and California’s Napa Valley easily standing in for Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, especially if you don’t know either of them. There was a public sensation in Napa over the two months of filming.

Presley’s best performances are in his early three attempts at drama: King Creole (1958), Flaming Star (1960) and Wild in the Country (1961).

No soundtrack album was released outside of a 45rpm single for Flaming Star and Wild in the Country.

Also in the cast are John Ireland, Gary Lockwood, Christina Crawford (daughter of Joan Crawford), Jason Robards Sr, Pat Buttram, Rafer Johnson, William Mims, Raymond Greenleaf, Robin Raymond, Doreen Lang and the legendary Rudd Weatherwax, who trained the animals used in the movie.

Elvis must have liked working with Gary Lockwood because they star together again in It Happened at the World’s Fair in 1963.

It is funny to think that Elvis would have been 85 on 8 January 2020.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Classic Movie Review 2713

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com

Gary Lockwood in 2001: A Space Odyssey.