(Some Spoilers) Coming home from school one evening pretty collage student Mary-Ann, Carroll Baker, is brutally attacked and raped from a man hiding in the bushes. Feeling guilty as well as traumatized Mary-Ann soon finds out that the life she had up until her being raped will never be the same again. This leads her to quit collage and move, from where she lived with her mom, into this one room dive on the lower East-Side of Manhattan. It's in this cold water walk-up where the landlord, Martin Kosieck, is more interested in her personally, Mary-Ann is some dish, then Mary-Ann's rent which is $5.00 a week.
As Mary-Ann starts to feel that her shattered life is no longer worth living she decides to end it all by attempting to jump off the Manhattan Bridge. It's then that her "Knight in Shining Amour" a car mechanic named Mike, Ralph Meeker, comes to her rescue! Or does he? Mike who's seems to have some problems, to say the least, with the opposite sex then practically kidnap's Mary-Ann keeping her locked up in his basement apartment as his now and future "wife"!
We get to see the effects of what was to become known as the "Stockholm Syndrome" in this weird relationship between Mary-Ann and the brutish and unkempt "Mike the Mechanic". At first Mary-Ann would have nothing at all to do with the scuzzy and Stanley Kowalski-like Mike who has trouble staying sober most of the time he's with her. Mary-Ann almost knocks out Mike's left eye when he come back to his "bachelor pad" dead drunk from a night of partying while she was being held there against her will. We, as well as Mary-Ann, soon realize just how juiced up Mike was when he, in the drunken state he was in, totally forgot what happened to him until Mary-Ann herself told the guy she was the person who gave him that king size shiner! All the time Mike thought that he got it it a brawl at the neighborhood gin-mill!
Finally getting the message in knowing that he's not wanted Mike did the right thing and, by leaving the door to his place unlocked, let Mary-Ann go free. If the big jerk did that when he first brought Mary-Ann, after saving her life, to his dump maybe she would have gotten to like him!
***SPOLER ALERT*** Even though the ending of the film is a bit hard to take it still brought tears, sob sob, to your eyes in showing how Mike cleaned himself up and changed his caveman attitude towards women by becoming a perfect gentleman. As for Mary-Ann she did overcome her fear of men, because of being raped, as well as life due to her wild and crazy relationship with Mike. Filmed on location in New York City "Something Wild" is also worth watching just for its nostalgia value alone.
Even though it was panned by the US critics for being too Avant Guard for their tastes in its no holds barred showing, among other things, of a woman being raped on screen the film was widely accepted in Europe for just that very reason; Its unapologetic realism. Now after some 45 years "Something Wild" has been rediscovered here in America as the ground breaking movie that it was back then in 1961. Even though compared to most adult films coming out of Hollywood studios now it may almost qualify for a "G" rating.
As Mary-Ann starts to feel that her shattered life is no longer worth living she decides to end it all by attempting to jump off the Manhattan Bridge. It's then that her "Knight in Shining Amour" a car mechanic named Mike, Ralph Meeker, comes to her rescue! Or does he? Mike who's seems to have some problems, to say the least, with the opposite sex then practically kidnap's Mary-Ann keeping her locked up in his basement apartment as his now and future "wife"!
We get to see the effects of what was to become known as the "Stockholm Syndrome" in this weird relationship between Mary-Ann and the brutish and unkempt "Mike the Mechanic". At first Mary-Ann would have nothing at all to do with the scuzzy and Stanley Kowalski-like Mike who has trouble staying sober most of the time he's with her. Mary-Ann almost knocks out Mike's left eye when he come back to his "bachelor pad" dead drunk from a night of partying while she was being held there against her will. We, as well as Mary-Ann, soon realize just how juiced up Mike was when he, in the drunken state he was in, totally forgot what happened to him until Mary-Ann herself told the guy she was the person who gave him that king size shiner! All the time Mike thought that he got it it a brawl at the neighborhood gin-mill!
Finally getting the message in knowing that he's not wanted Mike did the right thing and, by leaving the door to his place unlocked, let Mary-Ann go free. If the big jerk did that when he first brought Mary-Ann, after saving her life, to his dump maybe she would have gotten to like him!
***SPOLER ALERT*** Even though the ending of the film is a bit hard to take it still brought tears, sob sob, to your eyes in showing how Mike cleaned himself up and changed his caveman attitude towards women by becoming a perfect gentleman. As for Mary-Ann she did overcome her fear of men, because of being raped, as well as life due to her wild and crazy relationship with Mike. Filmed on location in New York City "Something Wild" is also worth watching just for its nostalgia value alone.
Even though it was panned by the US critics for being too Avant Guard for their tastes in its no holds barred showing, among other things, of a woman being raped on screen the film was widely accepted in Europe for just that very reason; Its unapologetic realism. Now after some 45 years "Something Wild" has been rediscovered here in America as the ground breaking movie that it was back then in 1961. Even though compared to most adult films coming out of Hollywood studios now it may almost qualify for a "G" rating.