From Paramount
Directed by George Cukor
Starring
Anna Magnani
Anthony Quinn
Anthony Franciosa
Dolores Hart
Joseph Calleia
Lili Valenty
A widowed Nevada sheep farmer (Quinn) goes to Italy to marry his former sister-in-law (Magnani), whom he has never met, and bring her to his home. She's never been outside her country, barely speaks English and is desperate to be loved.
She is shy around his family which includes Quinn's daughter (Hart), his brother and wife (Calleia and Valenty) and a trusted farm hand (Franciosa) whom Quinn has loved and cherished as a son for years. Quinn is a basically good man with honorable intentions.
He has a tendency to push people on others. He wants Hart to have a relationship with Franciosa, he wants all of them to take to Magnani. Calleia treats her with respect and welcomes her. Hart is thrilled to meet her actual aunt. Franciosa stands apart and Valenty seems hostile. Valenty has been the woman of the house for awhile and obviously not only resents the intrusion but thinks what Quinn has done is beyond the pale. She will not take her wrath out on Quinn but certainly will with Magnani.
The writer, Arnold Schulman, has added so much to the cauldron that it feels like a bitter-tasting stew in no time. As would be expected, watching the two principals getting to know one another sustains the story from start to finish. She wants to relax and get a feel for the new land and her new family while he wants to push her into everything.
She doesn't at all understand why he wants to shoot a small herd of Nevada's wild horses who eat the grass that feed his sheep and the couple has a helluva fight. She is also perplexed why he must leave home so often to try to sell his stock and why he never wants to take her along. She also has a problem with him calling her by her dead sister's name. She resists understanding that he married her in the hope that she would be like his late wife and he is disappointed that she isn't. But she does not, has not and will not understand why he neglects her emotionally and physically.
And oh we see it coming. Quinn leaves on one of his trips and Franciosa, who has been checking out Magnani with his furtive glances for awhile, puts her in a serious liplock. She resists though it's apparent it's only because she is a married to Quinn. But Franciosa doesn't stop and soon they are meeting. She falls passionately in love with him and once that happens (over several weeks), he gets a case of heavy regret.
Franciosa plans to leave the farm but doesn't tell Quinn why. Quinn, on the other hand, refuses to let him go. Once Quinn returns from another trip where he brings his daughter home on a college break, he comes to grips with his cuckolded status. It is obvious to him that his brother and wife know something and are keeping it from him. He finds his wife and surrogate son out on the range as they are embracing.
Magnani tells her husband the truth, confesses her love for Franciosa and begs him to leave with her. But Franciosa cannot deal with his shame and leaves the farm. Magnani, too, leaves but is intercepted at the airport by Quinn who wants her back, promising to be the husband she wants him to be. We feel her reluctance but she returns with him. They know and we know it's on a let's-wait-and-see-how-this-pans-out. It felt real to me.
In the book the woman dies but it was decided that she would live and the man was going to be the one to beg for forgiveness.
I so liked this film, this story. It's a rare instance where it never felt like acting. (Well, ok, Franciosa got a little too Actors Studio-ey in one scene but that was all I detected.) This felt like being with a real family with real problems, real emotions. That didn't mean, however, that there weren't problems behind the scenes.
John Sturges, director of Bad Day at Black Rock and Gunfight at O. K. Corral and the upcoming Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, was originally signed to direct. Apparently he hadn't read the script and he bolted after he found out it was a love story and not an action tale.
I have enjoyed much of Cukor's work and while it is good here, I thought he seemed like such an odd choice for a dusty, black and white film with costumes off the rack and well, you know, not refined or pretty. He didn't have a great experience making the film, some of which had to do with the fact that he couldn't talk his actors to death. He loved to talk about acting but one assumes two passionate Italians and one passionate Irish-Mexican weren't interested.
Magnani was always a terror to work with. She didn't talk over differences, she screamed and shouted and degraded when she could. She didn't like the costumes, the writing or Quinn. When she didn't get her way, she walked off the set, refused to return and at least once demolished her motel room. This was just her second American movie (she was under contract to producer Hal Wallis) and she hated working in America and never got accustomed to it and the American film industry never became accustomed to her.
Quinn said that he could not get along with Magnani... that she was a fiery tempestuous actress, a prima donna of the first order and a world-class troublemaker. He was fond of using the B-word to describe her. Most of the cast and crew agreed but Franciosa did not. He must have been confusing real life with reel life.
Just as it was in the story, those around them knew full well that Franciosa and Magnani were carrying on a torrid affair. There was just this little problem... he was scheduled to marry Shelley Winters who was about to arrive on the Nevada location. After they did so and after Winters left a few days later, the costars continued their affair which continued after the company returned to Paramount to film interiors.
All three lead actors were nominated for Oscars but only Quinn and Magnani were nominated for this film. Franciosa was nominated for A Hatful of Rain. Hart, in only her second film, didn't have a lot to do but her scenes with Magnani are touching. Calleia and especially Valenty are good fits for their roles.
There is without a doubt gorgeous black and white photography. Sometimes I wondered if Ansel Adams was the cinematographer but how fortunate to have Charles Lang behind those VistaVision cameras. Cukor had also begun taking more interest in the visual aspects of his films and here it shows. If one is taken at all with good black and white photography, one needs to give this movie a gander.
While we're at it, who could stir up images of wild winds better with music than the dramatic Dimitri Tiomkin? His score here is perfect and richly augmented by strains of the haunting title tune which is also sung over the opening credits by Johnny Mathis who had a great hit with it.
Finally there's Highland Dale. He is the black stallion that Magnani saves from a bullet and comes to love once it is tamed. When the movies needed a beautiful black, well-trained horse, it was Highland Dale for a number of years. I had first seen him in the 1954 films, Gypsy Colt and Black Horse Canyon but fell madly in love with him during the 1955-60 TV series Fury. He would go on to play Elizabeth Taylor's horse in Giant and end his movie career as Smoky in 1966. Damn, what a horse!
I've heard some people didn't like the movie. I say it has a number of things to recommend it, especially the acting. Interestingly enough, with all their acrimony obviously set aside, Quinn and Magnani reunited 12 years later, this time in her country, to make another film I much admired, The Secret of Santa Vittoria.
Here's a peek at Wild Is the Wind (and that horse)...
Next posting:
From the 1940s
A widowed Nevada sheep farmer (Quinn) goes to Italy to marry his former sister-in-law (Magnani), whom he has never met, and bring her to his home. She's never been outside her country, barely speaks English and is desperate to be loved.
She is shy around his family which includes Quinn's daughter (Hart), his brother and wife (Calleia and Valenty) and a trusted farm hand (Franciosa) whom Quinn has loved and cherished as a son for years. Quinn is a basically good man with honorable intentions.
He has a tendency to push people on others. He wants Hart to have a relationship with Franciosa, he wants all of them to take to Magnani. Calleia treats her with respect and welcomes her. Hart is thrilled to meet her actual aunt. Franciosa stands apart and Valenty seems hostile. Valenty has been the woman of the house for awhile and obviously not only resents the intrusion but thinks what Quinn has done is beyond the pale. She will not take her wrath out on Quinn but certainly will with Magnani.
The writer, Arnold Schulman, has added so much to the cauldron that it feels like a bitter-tasting stew in no time. As would be expected, watching the two principals getting to know one another sustains the story from start to finish. She wants to relax and get a feel for the new land and her new family while he wants to push her into everything.
She doesn't at all understand why he wants to shoot a small herd of Nevada's wild horses who eat the grass that feed his sheep and the couple has a helluva fight. She is also perplexed why he must leave home so often to try to sell his stock and why he never wants to take her along. She also has a problem with him calling her by her dead sister's name. She resists understanding that he married her in the hope that she would be like his late wife and he is disappointed that she isn't. But she does not, has not and will not understand why he neglects her emotionally and physically.
And oh we see it coming. Quinn leaves on one of his trips and Franciosa, who has been checking out Magnani with his furtive glances for awhile, puts her in a serious liplock. She resists though it's apparent it's only because she is a married to Quinn. But Franciosa doesn't stop and soon they are meeting. She falls passionately in love with him and once that happens (over several weeks), he gets a case of heavy regret.
Franciosa plans to leave the farm but doesn't tell Quinn why. Quinn, on the other hand, refuses to let him go. Once Quinn returns from another trip where he brings his daughter home on a college break, he comes to grips with his cuckolded status. It is obvious to him that his brother and wife know something and are keeping it from him. He finds his wife and surrogate son out on the range as they are embracing.
Magnani tells her husband the truth, confesses her love for Franciosa and begs him to leave with her. But Franciosa cannot deal with his shame and leaves the farm. Magnani, too, leaves but is intercepted at the airport by Quinn who wants her back, promising to be the husband she wants him to be. We feel her reluctance but she returns with him. They know and we know it's on a let's-wait-and-see-how-this-pans-out. It felt real to me.
In the book the woman dies but it was decided that she would live and the man was going to be the one to beg for forgiveness.
I so liked this film, this story. It's a rare instance where it never felt like acting. (Well, ok, Franciosa got a little too Actors Studio-ey in one scene but that was all I detected.) This felt like being with a real family with real problems, real emotions. That didn't mean, however, that there weren't problems behind the scenes.
John Sturges, director of Bad Day at Black Rock and Gunfight at O. K. Corral and the upcoming Magnificent Seven and The Great Escape, was originally signed to direct. Apparently he hadn't read the script and he bolted after he found out it was a love story and not an action tale.
I have enjoyed much of Cukor's work and while it is good here, I thought he seemed like such an odd choice for a dusty, black and white film with costumes off the rack and well, you know, not refined or pretty. He didn't have a great experience making the film, some of which had to do with the fact that he couldn't talk his actors to death. He loved to talk about acting but one assumes two passionate Italians and one passionate Irish-Mexican weren't interested.
Magnani was always a terror to work with. She didn't talk over differences, she screamed and shouted and degraded when she could. She didn't like the costumes, the writing or Quinn. When she didn't get her way, she walked off the set, refused to return and at least once demolished her motel room. This was just her second American movie (she was under contract to producer Hal Wallis) and she hated working in America and never got accustomed to it and the American film industry never became accustomed to her.
Quinn said that he could not get along with Magnani... that she was a fiery tempestuous actress, a prima donna of the first order and a world-class troublemaker. He was fond of using the B-word to describe her. Most of the cast and crew agreed but Franciosa did not. He must have been confusing real life with reel life.
Just as it was in the story, those around them knew full well that Franciosa and Magnani were carrying on a torrid affair. There was just this little problem... he was scheduled to marry Shelley Winters who was about to arrive on the Nevada location. After they did so and after Winters left a few days later, the costars continued their affair which continued after the company returned to Paramount to film interiors.
All three lead actors were nominated for Oscars but only Quinn and Magnani were nominated for this film. Franciosa was nominated for A Hatful of Rain. Hart, in only her second film, didn't have a lot to do but her scenes with Magnani are touching. Calleia and especially Valenty are good fits for their roles.
There is without a doubt gorgeous black and white photography. Sometimes I wondered if Ansel Adams was the cinematographer but how fortunate to have Charles Lang behind those VistaVision cameras. Cukor had also begun taking more interest in the visual aspects of his films and here it shows. If one is taken at all with good black and white photography, one needs to give this movie a gander.
While we're at it, who could stir up images of wild winds better with music than the dramatic Dimitri Tiomkin? His score here is perfect and richly augmented by strains of the haunting title tune which is also sung over the opening credits by Johnny Mathis who had a great hit with it.
Finally there's Highland Dale. He is the black stallion that Magnani saves from a bullet and comes to love once it is tamed. When the movies needed a beautiful black, well-trained horse, it was Highland Dale for a number of years. I had first seen him in the 1954 films, Gypsy Colt and Black Horse Canyon but fell madly in love with him during the 1955-60 TV series Fury. He would go on to play Elizabeth Taylor's horse in Giant and end his movie career as Smoky in 1966. Damn, what a horse!
I've heard some people didn't like the movie. I say it has a number of things to recommend it, especially the acting. Interestingly enough, with all their acrimony obviously set aside, Quinn and Magnani reunited 12 years later, this time in her country, to make another film I much admired, The Secret of Santa Vittoria.
Here's a peek at Wild Is the Wind (and that horse)...
Next posting:
From the 1940s
I've always loved the song "Wild is the Wind" and initially thought it was written by David Bowie. Then I realized Nina Simone inspired his rendition and that it was first sung by Johnny Mathis for this film. I remember enjoying the film when I first saw it. Thank you so much for the back stories. I need to see this film again.
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