Review of Walk on the Wild Side

I'm surprised to see so many comments praising the camp and trash value of a serious studio effort to push the Production Code out of the way. For 1962, it's pretty racy, and more honest about bordello life in New Orleans than you'd expect. After a great Saul Bass title sequence, we get fabulous deep-focus photography, evocative Elmer Bernstein scoring, and an interesting if not always ideal cast. Laurence Harvey, never the most convincing actor, does sport a secure Texas accent and evokes undying devotion and neediness touchingly; Anne Baxter stretches herself, not badly; Capucine's wooden but beautiful; Stanwyck does tough-old-broad as only she can, with some fairly frank lesbian overtones she's fearless about; and Jane Fonda is hot as all getout, and what others call overacting I see as leavening. The movie's livelier while she's in it, we miss her when she disappears a half-hour into it, and we're happier when she returns. Where the movie fails is in plotting--how did Capucine ever end up in Texas, anyway?; if the two of them want to be together, why doesn't he just accept Stanwyck's deal and meet up later in some other state?--but it has atmosphere, and brooding, for days.