Wild 90
Encyclopedia
Wild 90 is a 1968
experimental film
directed and produced by U.S. novelist Norman Mailer
, who also plays the starring role.
gangsters – The Prince (Norman Mailer), Cameo (Buzz Farbar) and Twenty Years (Mickey Knox
—are hiding in a warehouse. They have surrounded themselves with guns and liquor, and they kill time by joking and bickering with scatological language. But as their isolation from the world progresses, their drinking and arguing intensifies. They are briefly visited by a man with a barking dog—the canine is silenced when The Prince outbarks him—and by two women, one of whom gives The Prince a knife for committing suicide. The police arrive at the warehouse and the gangsters are taken away.
adaptation of his novel The Deer Park
engaged in an acting game where they pretended they were gangsters. The title Wild 90 is a reference to alleged Mafia slang term for being in deep trouble.
Mailer spent $1,500 of his own money to finance Wild 90. D.A. Pennebaker, the documentary filmmaker, was the cinematographer and shot the film in black-and-white 16mm. The production took place over four consecutive nights and the entire film was improvised by Mailer and his cast. The resulting dialogue was unusually heavy with profanities and Mailer later claimed that Wild 90 "has the most repetitive, pervasive obscenity of any film ever made."
The Puerto Rico
-born boxer José Torres
appeared as the man with the barking dog and Beverley Bentley (Mailer’s wife) played the woman with the knife. Mailer did not allow any retakes during the shoot.
Mailer wound up with 150 minutes of film, which was edited down to 90 minutes. Due to a technical glitch during the production, roughly 25 percent of the film’s soundtrack came out muffled. Mailer refused to redub the problem patches on the soundtrack and later joked the film “sounds like everybody is talking through a jockstrap.”
Reviews for Wild 90 were overwhelmingly negative. Renata Adler
, writing in The New York Times
, opined: “It relies also upon the indulgence of an audience that must be among the most fond, forgiving, ultimately patronizing and destructive of our time.” Robert Hatch, reviewing the film for The Nation, stated that the film was “rambling, repetitious...incoherent and inept.” Stanley Kauffmann
, writing in The New Republic
, said that “I cannot say that Mailer was drunk the whole time he was on camera. I can only hope he was drunk.”
Mailer responded to the bad reviews by including them in the original theatrical poster. Wild 90 was a commercial failure, but Mailer followed up the production with two additional improvised experimental films, Beyond the Law (1968) and Maidstone
(1970).
1968 in film
The year 1968 in film involved some significant events.-Events:* October 30 - The film The Lion in Winter, starring Katharine Hepburn, debuts.* November 1 - The MPAA's film rating system is introduced.-Top grossing films :- Awards :...
experimental film
Experimental film
Experimental film or experimental cinema is a type of cinema. Experimental film is an artistic practice relieving both of visual arts and cinema. Its origins can be found in European avant-garde movements of the twenties. Experimental cinema has built its history through the texts of theoreticians...
directed and produced by U.S. novelist Norman Mailer
Norman Mailer
Norman Kingsley Mailer was an American novelist, journalist, essayist, poet, playwright, screenwriter, and film director.Along with Truman Capote, Joan Didion, Hunter S...
, who also plays the starring role.
Plot
A trio of MafiaMafia
The Mafia is a criminal syndicate that emerged in the mid-nineteenth century in Sicily, Italy. It is a loose association of criminal groups that share a common organizational structure and code of conduct, and whose common enterprise is protection racketeering...
gangsters – The Prince (Norman Mailer), Cameo (Buzz Farbar) and Twenty Years (Mickey Knox
Mickey Knox (actor)
Abraham "Mickey" Knox is an American actor, screenwriter, film producer and novelist. He is associated with the Hollywood blacklist when he was forced to move to Italy to work. As an actor, he currently has 78 listed credits. Quentin Tarantino named his lead character after him in the film...
—are hiding in a warehouse. They have surrounded themselves with guns and liquor, and they kill time by joking and bickering with scatological language. But as their isolation from the world progresses, their drinking and arguing intensifies. They are briefly visited by a man with a barking dog—the canine is silenced when The Prince outbarks him—and by two women, one of whom gives The Prince a knife for committing suicide. The police arrive at the warehouse and the gangsters are taken away.
Production
Wild 90 was the first attempt by Norman Mailer to create a motion picture. The concept for the film came when Mailer and several actors who were appearing in an Off-BroadwayOff-Broadway
Off-Broadway theater is a term for a professional venue in New York City with a seating capacity between 100 and 499, and for a specific production of a play, musical or revue that appears in such a venue, and which adheres to related trade union and other contracts...
adaptation of his novel The Deer Park
The Deer Park
The Deer Park is a Hollywood novel written by Norman Mailer and published in 1955 by G.P. Putnam's Sons after it was rejected by Mailer's publisher, Rinehart & Company, for obscenity. Despite having already typeset the book, Rinehart claimed that the manuscript's obscenity voided its contract with...
engaged in an acting game where they pretended they were gangsters. The title Wild 90 is a reference to alleged Mafia slang term for being in deep trouble.
Mailer spent $1,500 of his own money to finance Wild 90. D.A. Pennebaker, the documentary filmmaker, was the cinematographer and shot the film in black-and-white 16mm. The production took place over four consecutive nights and the entire film was improvised by Mailer and his cast. The resulting dialogue was unusually heavy with profanities and Mailer later claimed that Wild 90 "has the most repetitive, pervasive obscenity of any film ever made."
The Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...
-born boxer José Torres
José Torres
José Torres , was a Puerto Rican professional boxer. As an amateur boxer, he won a silver medal in the junior middleweight at the 1956 Olympic Games in Melbourne. In 1965, he defeated Willie Pastrano to win the WBC and WBA light heavyweight championships...
appeared as the man with the barking dog and Beverley Bentley (Mailer’s wife) played the woman with the knife. Mailer did not allow any retakes during the shoot.
Mailer wound up with 150 minutes of film, which was edited down to 90 minutes. Due to a technical glitch during the production, roughly 25 percent of the film’s soundtrack came out muffled. Mailer refused to redub the problem patches on the soundtrack and later joked the film “sounds like everybody is talking through a jockstrap.”
Release
Pennebaker tried to convince Mailer not to put Wild 90 into theatrical release because of the problematic nature of its soundtrack. Mailer disregarded that suggestion and went forward by self-distributing the film. He also promoted the film extensively, which included writing a self-congratulatory essay on the film that appeared in Esquire magazine.Reviews for Wild 90 were overwhelmingly negative. Renata Adler
Renata Adler
Renata Adler is an American author, journalist and film critic.-Background and education:Adler was born in Milan, Italy, and grew up in Danbury, Connecticut. After gaining a B.A. in philosophy and German from Bryn Mawr, Adler studied for an M.A. in Comparative Literature at Harvard under I. A...
, writing in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, opined: “It relies also upon the indulgence of an audience that must be among the most fond, forgiving, ultimately patronizing and destructive of our time.” Robert Hatch, reviewing the film for The Nation, stated that the film was “rambling, repetitious...incoherent and inept.” Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann
Stanley Kauffmann is an American author, editor, and critic of film and theatre. He has written for The New Republic since 1958 and currently contributes film criticism to that magazine....
, writing in The New Republic
The New Republic
The magazine has also published two articles concerning income inequality, largely criticizing conservative economists for their attempts to deny the existence or negative effect increasing income inequality is having on the United States...
, said that “I cannot say that Mailer was drunk the whole time he was on camera. I can only hope he was drunk.”
Mailer responded to the bad reviews by including them in the original theatrical poster. Wild 90 was a commercial failure, but Mailer followed up the production with two additional improvised experimental films, Beyond the Law (1968) and Maidstone
Maidstone (film)
Maidstone was a film made in 1970, directed by, written by, and starring Norman Mailer.-Plot summary:Famous film director Norman Kingsley runs for President while working on his latest film project...
(1970).