The Wild Party

1975 "Hollywood in the '20s... Gin, Sin and a Night they're still whispering about!"
5.3| 1h49m| R| en| More Info
Released: 01 March 1975 Released
Producted By: Merchant Ivory Productions
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

An aging silent movie comic star throws a lavish party to try and save his failing career.

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Merchant Ivory Productions

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Reviews

Married Baby Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?
Paynbob It’s fine. It's literally the definition of a fine movie. You’ve seen it before, you know every beat and outcome before the characters even do. Only question is how much escapism you’re looking for.
Raymond Sierra The film may be flawed, but its message is not.
Cody One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.
smatysia (Very) loosely based on the Fatty Arbuckle scandal from circa 1921, this film is set in 1929, and based on a poem from that era, which I have not read, a few lines of which are voiced over in the film. James Coco's character was very annoying. This is not really criticism, because that was obviously intentional. Perry King played his part as melodramatically as a scene from the times. Royal Dano was excellent as befits his long and distinguished career as a character actor.It has been a long time since I have seen a film with Raquel Welch. She was long mocked back in the day (before silicone) as just a big pair of boobs, but I found her performance compelling, and the best part of this movie.
rip-5 Something tells me that the story of how this movie even got made is more interesting than what ends up on the screen. Surely, when matching low-budget exploitation producer Samuel Z. Arkoff with the future-classic producing/directing team Merchant/Ivory, something odd must have occurred. Nothing, and I mean nothing about this 1975 film, based on the infamous Fatty Arbuckle scandal, works. The film, sadly, exists to new audiences as a cautionary signpost marking Zarkoff's failed attempt to move toward legitimate mainstream film-making. He should have stuck to his bread-and-butter tripe (such as "The Beast With a Million Eyes").Here we have tubby James Coco (with over-the-title billing!) throwing a party to lure members of silent-era Hollywood moguls to distribute his self-financed Opus. Complete with songs by the (terribly melodramatic) Raquel Welch, the film sinks deeper and deeper in to awkward, self-indulgent pathos. Poorly acted, directed and designed (with cheaply dressed sets and awful original "period" songs in the background), this film is one to be missed at all costs. Perhaps one day, the true secret to this film's odd conception will be revealed, and it will make some sense. Until then, perhaps a potential viewer would be better off reading a book.
sol **SPOILERS** Surviving from what happened in the wild party of the night before at comedy legend Jolly Grimm ,James Coco, mansion writer Jimmy Morrison, David Dukes, is laid up in his hospital bed recovering from a bullet wound in his neck. Jimmy is doing what he does best writing a screenplay about the terrible events that put him in the hospital and ended up taking the lives of two people, one a major screen heart-throb, at the party.It all started when comedian Jolly Grimm who hadn't made a movie in years invited all the Hollywood big shot producers and a number of actors actresses, and hangers on, to his place to view his new film "Brother Jasper" that he hoped will re-start his fledgling career. Having had an amazing 27 hits in a row Grimm is now considered a has-been by the studios and hasn't been giving any staring parts in any of their major motion pictures. Grimm decided to go over their heads and make a movie that he stares in and and directed himself. Grimm still needs the Hollywood honchos to distribute his movie for it to reach the public and it's at the party that Grimm is throwing that he hopes to impress them in just doing that. Tense and nervous the day before the big party Grimm takes it out on his live-in girlfriend Queenie, Requal Welch, who put up with his manic-depressive actions for years but now it seems that even she reached her breaking point with Grimm unable, or not wanting, to control his violent outbursts anymore that she's at the receiving end.Showing Jimmy the movie "Brother Jasper" to get his professional opinion Grimm's told that the movie needs a number of changes or cuts, like a comedic cannibal scene,in what's supposed to be a heart-wrenching and serious film, that has poor Jimmy almost thrown out of the Grimm Mansion. With all the Hollywood illuminates showing up to see what Grimm hoped to be his masterpiece and the movie that would catapult him back on top of the weekly theater ticket receipts, and on the silver screen, things don't go as well as Grimm hoped in fact the party turns out to be a total and deadly disaster for him.Loosely based on an incident about actor Fatty Arbuckle back in the 1920's when he was arrested and put on trial for the rape and murder of a young starlet that he invited to a drunken party, and orgy, of his. Arbuckle was found innocent but his career was finished and he died a poor and broken man some ten years later.James Coco is at his best as the tragic Jolly Grimm who ends up not only losing any chance of getting back in the Hollywood limelight but also looses Queenie first to movie matinée idol Dale Sword, Perry King, and then ends up losing her life due to his jealous and uncountable rage. Grimm is not at all that much of a villain in the film "The Wild Party" he's more a victim of his own spectacular success.Sweet and loving at first when he took Queenie off the street and gave her a place to stay, in his, mansion and put her in a number of his movies as well, as taking care off all her needs Grimm also treated Queenie as an equal not as someone who's totally dependent on him. It was only when his career started to fall apart that Grimm became an abusive swine towards her as well as everyone else. With the party degenerating into an orgy free for all and Queenie leaving Grimm, by going off with Dale Sword, all by himself that the drinks and suspicions that were overwhelming his already fragile mind took control and Grimm lost it as well as lost what life and freedom that he still had left.
edwardholub One critic said it never had a release in the states which is wrong. I saw it in a theater in Princeton, N.J. It was long before the Merchant/Ivory rep kicked in. James Coco was probably the closest they could come to a Fatty Arbuckle look-a-like, but his performance is miserable. When he realizes that he has no backers for his new film and his mistress Queenie has run off with Perry King, he stands on the landing of his staircase and drunkenly berates the remaining guests at his party. The funny thing is that the camera never moves, nor are there any cutaways from him. He just goes on and on when someone should have yelled cut. Raquel Welch's musical numbers were, I suppose, meant to entice lusty revelry among the guests, but she's not that talented. Leave that sort of thing to Mae West. The whole project smacks of Golan-Globus amateur theatrics. Bad writing, bad acting, bad lighting, bad cinematography.