Wild Seed (1965) Transitional - True Romance Noir

A nice surprise.

A Transitional Noir about a Manhattan teen runaway named Daphne who hooks up with a young hobo drifter named Fargo. Together they hop freights and ride the rods towards Tinseltown, L.A. The City Of Angels. Daphne is going there to meet her biological father. It's about "La Strada" the road, only this go round the road is the steel rail one.

Transitional Noirs derived from Classical Noirs. Clasical Noirs were mostly crime based films (but not all), and bent the noir style in new directions. Directions that were very popular to a newer audience in the late 50s early 60's. The films were experimental and exploitative. Exploiting a new found freedom to explore different dark subjects. It was a spark that ignited other sparks of imagination. Good, Bad, and oddball films started appearing in late 50s early 60s they in turn influenced more free ideas into the 1970s.

Noir never really ended it just morphed into what we call Neo Noir. It didn't happen all at once in one great kink, no it gradually ripped sparking apart with these new directions to explore. Some of these films on that edge that contain the noir visual stylistics, the sort of DNA of noir, a great example being Psycho, are the Transitional Noirs.

Wild Seed was directed by Brian G. Hutton, the only two films of his that I've seen and liked are later efforts, Where Eagles Dare (1968), and Kelly's Heroes (1970), both are quite different from Wild Seed. The story was written by Lester Pine and based on a story by Ike Jones.

What makes this film noticeable to me is the great Cinematography. It was by Conrad L. Hall. Hall was responsible for Newman's Harper (1966), the top tier In Cold Blood (1967), John Huston's  Fat City (1972), Robert Blake's Electra Glide in Blue (1973), Debra Winger and Theresa Russell's Black Widow (1987), and and more recently Road to Perdition (2002)) there's others to explore.

Conrad Hall's cinematographic sequences are not only crisp and stylish but are also beautiful archival captures of  Manhattan. Then old PATH subway tubes to Hoboken and Greater New York, but they also capture the first decade of interstate highways. We see freight-yards and railroad action, get visual pointers for riding the rails and get glimpses of flyover country. It's a true Road Noir.

Michael Parks as Fargo

Celia Kaye as Daphne

The film stars Michael Parks (Then Came Bronson TV Series (1969–1970) and  more recently Kill Bill: Vol. 1 and  2. Park's plays Fargo, Celia Kaye ( Island of the Blue Dolphins (1964), The Final Comedown (1972) and The Green Hornet (1966)) plays Daphne, noir and monster movie vet Ross Elliott (The Crooked Way (1949), Gun Crazy (1950), Woman on the Run (1950), Storm Warning (1951), Loan Shark (1952), Tarantula (1955) Indestructible Man (1956)) as Mr. Collinge, with Woody Chambliss as Mr. Simms, Rupert Crosse as Hobo, Eva Novak as Mrs. Simms, Norman Burton as Policeman, Merritt Bohn (The Manchurian Candidate and Twilight Zone) as Constable, and Al Lettieri (The Getaway (1972)) as Bartender.

The Music by Richard Markowitz smartly fits the era from beatnik bongos, to jazz, to rock.

So seventeen year old Daphne an adopted daughter of an older couple, decides to split home in search of her biological father. He adoptive mother had created a fictional "harlequin romance" type tragedy for Daphne, in the form of love letters. A whirlwind romance and marriage that lasts four days. Father goes off to war mother dies in childbirth, separated since.

PATH tubes to Jersey

Fueled by this fantasy Daphne slips early one morning out of her townhouse and onto the steaming streets of Manhattan. She rides the PATH to Hoboken, New Jersey, makes her way to a main drag heading West and starts thumbing.

We don't know for sure if she's made some mileage or not but she eventually gets picked up by a creep who waits until dark when she falls asleep before driving off the interstate onto some two lane and eventually into the boonies. There the guy leans over and tries to force Daphne to have sex.

This is the same scenario of Sexploitation Noir Girl In Trouble,  Judy leaves the safety of home for a dream/fantasy.

In both films the girls fight off their attackers and continue on their quests. In Daphne's case the guy looses his taste for the fight, in Judy's case she kisses her attacker with a wrench and steals his car. All Daphne escapes with is her purse, loosing her coat and suitcase.

Daphne makes her way to the nearest civilization. She probably looked for lights and followed the roads that went towards them.

Fargo

First meet

Outside an all night service station Daphne meets Fargo who immediately hits her up for money.  She doesn't trust him at first and Fargo sort of takes on a big brother protectiveness of her when he sees she's got cash. Whether he's conning Daphne for her money or actually cares is a testament to Park's acting talent. He hears out Daphne's story, tells her that it sounds like bullshit. but he tells her he can help her get to California to see her father.

Fargo takes Daphne to the hobo jungle and there he asks the main bo the "king of the road" if you will, which freight is heading in the direction of where they want to end up. This guy is sort of a walking freight train timetable. It's a nice sequence. The three are sitting around the fire  the bo and Frago taking swigs from a bottle. The bo is heading that a way also, he tells them.

The three hop a freight and ride in an open boxcar.

Now this next sequence is a strange one, because after they have been riding in the box car for a stretch the train finally slows as it pulls into a yard. Fargo makes a comment and inexplicably hops off leaving Daphne with the bo.

At this point it almost gives the impression that Fargo is "giving" her to the bo to do what he wants. But then the freight stops and railroad bulls spot Daphne in the box car. The bo, a black man BTW,  isn't spotted as he hunkers in the shadows.

This sequence is also in a similar vein to an earlier one where Fargo falsely tells Daphne that he spots some cops and tells her to hide in the service station bathroom. It's actually a cross country semi-truck which would allow Daphne to split clean away from Fargo's scheming designs.

Anyway Daphne's put in the lineup with other bo's that were on the freight. Daphne, is soon re-joined by Fargo, who also didn't get away after all . They all get hauled away to the local hoosegow for questioning. Daphne is worried about being discovered for a runaway and being sent back to NYC.

Now what makes me think the story might have took a darker or implied a darker turn was that fact that Frago when questioned has all of Daphne's money and her wallet. So the question is why did he initially jump off the freight with all her possessions and leave her with the bo?

Merritt Bohn as Constable

Fargo tells the police constable that he is Daphne's husband of a few months, that gets both him and her out of trouble though they still have to spend the night in a tank with the vagrants and drunks

From here on out Daphne and Fargo begin to grow an affection for each other eventually making love. A Noir True Romance story without too much violence.

It goes Noirsville when Daphne finds out the truth about her biological father, who wants nothing to do with her other to get her out of his life. He's married and has kids of his own.

Noirsville

Woody Chambliss as Mr. Simms

 Ross Elliott is Mr. Collinge

The film leaves us with an ambiguous ending. How Noir is that? The optimists among us will assume it goes one way the pessimists another everybody can be happy.

All the performances are spot on and believable. A forgotten gem. 7/10