Wild in the Country (1961) on Netflix
A court puts Glenn Tyler, a childish twenty-five-year-old from a dysfunctional family, on probation with his uncle in a small town. Irene Sperry counsels him and encourages his writing.
- Netflix2.8/5
- IMDb6.3/102,354 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes50%
Trailer
Plot summary
Glenn Tyler is a childish twenty-five-year-old from a dysfunctional family. He gets into a fight with his drunken brother and badly injures him. A court places him on probation and sends him to live with his uncle in a small town in the Shenandoah Valley. Irene Sperry is appointed to give him psychological counseling. The town has marked him a troublemaker, and suspicions of misdemeanors fall on him. Irene sees that Glenn has a knack for writing, and she urges him to pursue a literary career.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Wild in the Country (1961)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Millie Perkins broke her arm while filming the scene in which her character Betty Lee slaps Glenn, and the scene was cut out of the film before it was released.
SPOILER
In the original script and rough cut, actress Lange's character Irene Sperry succeeds in her suicide attempt, but preview audiences reacted negatively, and the scene was redone so Irene survives and sees Glenn off to college.- The studio fired Clifford Odets with the script only half written, so director Philip Dunne, who did not want to and had to be persuaded, finished the screenplay himself.
- Elvis Presley could not get the right tempo for his love scenes with Hope Lange, so director Philip Dunne had him listen to Bach's Fifth Brandenburg Concerto; he got it and did the smooching very slowly in one take.
- This was Elvis Presley's last dramatic lead until Charro!, and his subsequent films were largely formula musical-comedies that were lucrative but never let him develop the serious-actor potential apparent here.
- The studio, under Bob Goldstein, refused Simone Signoret's salary demands and insisted Dunne and Wald use a contract player; Barbara Bel Geddes was cast at one stage, and they eventually cast Hope Lange even though Wald and Dunne thought her too young for the part.
- It was the last movie shot at the colonial mansion that had stood on the studio backlot since 1934, and the building was knocked down and sold after filming completed.
