LURE OF THE WILDERNESS
US, 1952, 93 minutes, Colour.
Jean Peters, Jeffrey Hunter, Constance Smith, Walter Brennan, Tom Tully, Jack Elam.
Directed by Jean Negulesco.
Lure of the Wilderness is based on a novel by Vereen Bell and was the basis for the 1941 Jean Renoir film, Swamp Water (which also had Walter Brennan in the cast). It is the story of a young girl and her father escaping from a lynch mob in a swamp in Georgia. The girl grows up there – and eventually meets a hunter. The film is an action adventure with social themes.
The colourful remake of 1952 starred the leading actors at 20th Century- Fox at the time including Jean Peters and Jeffrey Hunter. Constance Smith had come from Ireland and was also in a number of films at this time.
The film is rather standard action adventure, especially in comparison with the style that Renoir brought to Swamp Water. The film was directed by Jean Negulesco who had directed a number of thrillers and dramas at Warner Bros in the 1940s including The Mask of Dimitrios and Johnny Belinda. He was to move into the Cinemascope era with some plush films including How to Marry a Millionaire and Woman’s World as well as a number of ‘women’s films’ including Count Your Blessings, A Certain Smile and The Best of Everything.
1. This film as popular entertainment from the fifties? Colour, young stars? The style of the fifties?
2. The atmosphere of the opening, the swamps and their dangers, the history of fear about the swamps, the townspeople’s response, audience response? The importance of the swamps and the wilderness on theme and character?
3. How central was Ben as hero? The young adventurous man, the sequences with the dog, a sympathetic hero? His involvement with Jim and Laurie? The contrast with Noreen? His relationship with his father and defiance of his father? His earnest taking up of Jim's cause? Sharing adventures in the wilderness? The victim of the townspeople?
4. How important was the vindication of Ben and of Jim for the success of the film? The conventional ingredients of heroes and victims and hostile townspeople?
5. Jim and his daughter as victim of the townspeople? As victim of the criminals? The importance of his survival, his bitterness and yet his growing capacity to trust? The dangers for vindication? The rightness of the happy ending?
6. How attractive was Laurie as a tomboy heroine? Her surviving with her father, her bitterness, learning to trust, learning to love? Her suspicions of Jim? The episode at the dance? The happy ending?
7. Noreen as the heroine who might have been? Her lone for Ben, her vindictiveness* her causing him to suffer, her change of heart?
8. How conventional the villains and their behaviour? The atmosphere of suspense In their trying to shoot Ben and Jim?
9. How enjoyable a film? As an ordinary exploration of human values?
