THE WILD PARTY (1975) MGM Blu-ray Screenshots

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THE WILD PARTY (1975)

Label: MGM
Region Code: A
Rating: R
Duration: 108 Minutes 30 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1)
Director: James Ivory
Cast: James Coco, Perry King, Tiffany Bolling, Raquel Welch, Royal Dano, David Dukes, Annette Ferra, Don de Natale, Dena Dietrich, Regis J. Cordic

Directed by James Ivory (The Remains of the Day) and loosely based on Joseph Moncure March's narrative poem of the same name, this tragic Hollywood tale is set in the year 1929, when the new talkie films are all the rage, but faded silent film star Jolly Grimm (James Coco, Scavenger Hunt), who seems like a stand-in for the notorious "Fatty" Arbuckle, makes a late-career stab at relevance by self-financing a historical drama-comedy based on the life of an obscure 1th century San Francisco-based friar. To promote it has and his live-in mistress/muse Queenie (Raquel Welch, Hannie Caulder) throw a lavish party at his mansion to premiere his magnum opus and hopefully get it distributed by the Hollywood moguls he invited, be it Mr. Murchison (Regis Cordic) or the Kruetzer (Eddie Lawrence).

As soon as the film screens it becomes evident that it's too little too late, no one cares about silent-films anymore and Grimm's slapsticks antics are old hat and cliched, and so he must face a horrible truth about himself and his career. Complicating matters starlet Kate (Tiffany Bolling, Bonnie's Kids) brings her new beau to the gathering, a Valentino-esque newcomer named Dale Sword (Perry King, TV's Riptide), who almost immediately has his eye and Queenie, and hers on him, much to the dismay of both Grimm and Sword's shunned date Kate.

With his career seemingly irretrievably tarnished and Queenie drawn to another man things spiral out of control as Grimm turns to booze; the party is imbued with drugs, thanks to a bi-sexual pimp named Jackie (Don De Natale, Roseland)it and after the screening the place turns into a crazy night of orgiastic sex for many of the guests. Eventually the drunk and broken Grimm gets his hands on a gun things get out of control, though Grimm's his best pals author James (David Dukes, Rawhead Rex), who has an unrequited crush on Queenie as well, and Grimms loyal chauffer Tex (Royal Dano, Ghoulies II), try to mitigate the damage, but it's a wild party, and things go down.

This is what I would call a hot mess of a movie, tonally it's all over the place, and while the story of a silent-era movie star's fame dimming in the age of the talkie is quite interesting but I don't think the script or this particular edit of it served it well. There was apparently a lot of drama behind the scenes, much of it seeming to involve Welch, and it tested oddly to audiences which lead to the studio not quite sure how to market it. I've always heard that Raquel Welch was a bit of a dud in this, but I thought she was fine, definitely not great, but she certainly looks the part with a classic beauty and finger-wave hair-do, glammed-out jazz-era fashions - she suits the part, and far outshines wooden pretty boy Perry King in the acting departments. Where I think it defaults a bit is in the script, there's lip service from both Queenie and Grimm on separate occasions that get into how they met when she was a starving vaudeville performer and he took her in and fed her, and listened to her, but now the relationship has long soured, he's abusive, slaps her and throws scalding hot cups of coffee at her, but neither side of the story really connected with me as an audience member. I get why she attracted to the handsome newcomer who gives her attention, I just don't know why she stayed with Grimm for so long and put up with it. other than she liked being kept, which doesn't exactly make her sympathetic. Seeing character actor James Coco in a lead role was a nice change of pace, I grew watching him as a support man in comedic stuff like Scavenger Hunt, Murder By Death, and The Muppets Take Manhattan, but to my recollection I don't recall him holding down a film as he does here, and he's terrific, playing the role overly big in the best possible way, seeing his character loose their grip was plenty entertaining. Another odd turn is the narration offered by Duke's character, opening with him in a hospital bed starting the tale after the party, then told in flashback, and at one point during the party he looks right into the camera and breaks the fourth wall, and then closes out the film with more narration, that felt oddball. While it took me out of the film i will also say that I liked it when he's introducing characters during the party scenes, spilling the tea, but the narration comes and goes, and when it starts back up again it feels a bit off-putting, it could have been better used in my opinion.