WILD GIRL (1932)

This pre-code melodrama is framed as if we're flipping through a photo album, with scene transitions done by page turns instead of wipes or fadeouts. The credits feature the actors introducing themselves in character. In the small mountain town of Redwood City, young tomboyish wild child Salomy Jane (Joan Bennett) is well liked by the townsfolk, and is being pursued by several men—though in the film's intro, she tells us that she likes trees better than men. Rufe, a scruffy sort, is feuding with Jack, a slick gambler, over Salomy. Phineas Baldwin, a mayoral candidate and supposed member of the Purity League, is planning on driving the saloon's ladies of leisure out of town, even as he eventually aggressively nuzzles Salomy though she adamantly refuses his advances. While Salomy engages in some innocent skinny dipping in the woods, she meets a handsome and gallant stranger (Charles Farrell) who is looking for Baldwin, whom he blames for driving his sister to suicide. When Baldwin assaults Salomy, the stage is set for revenge, murder, robbery, and a lynching. The biggest reason a classic movie buff might have for wanting to see this is that the young Joan Bennett is blonde (pictured with Farrell); the first sight of her this way is a bit of a shock to anyone who knows her from her later work (especially as the matriarch in Dark Shadows). Only 22 when she made this film, Bennett is surprisingly light and fizzy and quite good as the title character. Her wildness, as we discover quickly, is much more about energy and innocence and has nothing to do with sexual behavior. Charles Farrell, who could be a bit dull in romantic lead roles, is very good as the Stranger, maintaining the character's mysterious aura throughout. A youngish Ralph Bellamy is Jack and Morgan Wallace is appropriately slimy as Baldwin—his final comeuppance scene is a standout. Eugene Pallette has fun as Yuba Bill, the stagecoach driver. He is partly comic relief, though his character is important to the story. The visual style gives the whole thing a kind of fairy tale or folklore feel, and some  location shooting was done in the Sequoia National Park in California. The director is Raoul Walsh, best known for a string of 1940s movies (WHITE HEAT, HIGH SIERRA, THEY DRIVE BY NIGHT) and he gives the film a light touch even as it deals in sordid melodrama. [TCM]