The great Conrad Hall (the original Outer Limits) photographed Wild Seed in black & white and his mastery of light and shadow fit the noir mood of this melancholy story. The late Michael Parks is excellent and Celia Kaye in an early role perfectly projected the innocence of am earnest young girl inexperience in life. An experienced actress would have come across as artificial and "Hollywood." Their growing love story is completely believable. The direction by Brian Hutton is effective. Much of the story takes place on freight trains which gets a little tedious but the logistics of shooting these sequences had to have been complex and somewhat dangerous. It was produced by Marlon Brando's production company and it would not have been a stretch to see a 50s era Brando take the Parks role but not in 1964. Parks was more Dean than Brando in demeanor and it's hard to understand why Then Came Bronson hasn't been released on DVD when every piece of junk is. Turner Classics made a bad decision to pair this with Parks' and Ann- Margret's Bus Riley's Back In Town for a 2AM showing Nov. 25, 2017 on TCM Underground instead of giving it an 8PM time slot with a guest when more people would have tuned in to appreciate this little-seen gem. These films are all wrong for Underground which focuses on psychotronic, whacked-out films.
Review of Wild Seed
