{"id":4487,"date":"2012-03-23T12:31:06","date_gmt":"2012-03-23T16:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4487"},"modified":"2012-03-23T12:31:06","modified_gmt":"2012-03-23T16:31:06","slug":"film-lure-of-the-wilderness-1952","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/?p=4487","title":{"rendered":"Film: Lure of the Wilderness (1952)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Return to: <\/strong>Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> \/ <\/em>J to L<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/a>Film: Good \/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a<\/p>\n

Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a<\/p>\n

Genre: Drama \/ Suspense<\/p>\n

Synopsis: A trapper discovers a convicted murderer in the Okefenokee Swamp, and starts to fall for his hot daughter.<\/p>\n

Special Features: n\/a<\/p>\n

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Review:<\/p>\n

This second filming of Vereen Bell\u2019s novel Swamp Water <\/strong>has some radical changes compared to the far superior 1941 <\/a>[M<\/a>] Jean Renoir version, and while the 1952 effort does stand on its own, Lure of the Wilderness<\/strong> has one big blunder in Louis Lantz\u2019 overhaul (which we\u2019ll get into shortly).<\/p>\n

The core story of trapper Ben Tyler (baby-faced Jeffrey Hunter) who encounters escaped murderer \u00a0Jim Harper (Walter Brennan, literally reprising his 1941 role) living in the Okefenokee Swamp in Georgia is still there; Lantz either stuck with the same scenes and dialogue from the novel, or pasted material from Dudley Nichols\u2019 \u201841 script where changes weren\u2019t necessary. Like Renoir, director Jean Negulesco also made excellent use of real swamp locations, using his painter\u2019s eye to extract some lovely compositions, but there are weird moments when the shots feel identical, as do the sets (as though the art department copied them from the \u201941 film, or repurposed extant sets and d\u00e9cor from the warehouse).<\/p>\n

Lantz also retained Ben\u2019s rival loves \u2013 his fianc\u00e9e \/ queen bitch Noreen McGowan (Irish import and ephemeral Hollywood starlet Constance Smith), and wild-child Laurie (beautifully lit Jean Peters) \u2013 but it was decided to beef up the film\u2019s romance and turn Laurie into a character of equal footing, so when Ben first wanders into the swamp in search of his dog Careless (rebranded from the old name Trouble), he doesn\u2019t just encounter Ben, but tag-teamer Laurie, who\u2019s been living all feral-like for 6 years with her pop.<\/p>\n

In the \u201941 version, Laurie was a wild child and ward of the town\u2019s general store owner, whereas in the new version she\u2019s essentially Ben\u2019s weathered and untrusting half, or his malevolent Id.<\/em> Lantz basically splintered and reconfigured Ben into 2 characters: a tired man hungry to return to civilization, sitting on the porch smoking cigars; and in a recombined Laurie, now a leggy swamp huntress, wielding a bow & arrow like a Sheena knock-off, berating her pop for even considering the very idea of leaving their wet & wonderful paradise. More interesting, while both have been living off the land, Ben\u2019s been able to keep his beard trim without the aide of a mirror and razor, and clean-skinned Laurie looks really hot in her 1952 ponytail and tanned pelt miniskirt. Bug bites? Pshaw! She\u2019s immune!<\/p>\n

By having Laurie with her father, Ben naturally spends more time in the swamp, and Lantz sets up two hunting montages in which boy and girl compete, laugh, and slowly develop an attraction \u2013 a variant on the courting that half-hazardly occurred in town in the prior version. The downside is Ben\u2019s fianc\u00e9e Noreen has just the bare minimum scenes compared to the \u201941 film, and his father Ned even less.<\/p>\n

The slimming down of Ned\u2019s role also yielded a major casualty from the original story: his younger, second wife Hannah is gone, as are the scenes where family arguments established the awkward relationship between father and son.<\/p>\n

By dumping Ben\u2019s stepmom, Lantz also had no reason to retain her stalking ex-beau Jesse, who played the guitar (which Jim now does, via banjo) and more importantly, was the key witness who could implicate the real murderers and allow Jim to return home a free man. Without Jesse, screenwriter Lantz was forced to play with the facts of Ben\u2019s past, and make him a murderer who just wants a second attempt at a fair trial, which isn\u2019t a reason for him to return to civilization when a) he\u2019s a convicted killer; and b) there\u2019s no one to help clear his name<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Lantz\u2019 solution? Jim admits to killing a man in his first scene with Ben, but the two men who were the prosecution\u2019s witnesses in the trial were secretly responsible for a second murder <\/em>(some unnamed guy) which they pegged to Jim; Lantz never provides additional details to the how\u2019s, the why\u2019s, etc.<\/p>\n

In Lantz\u2019 scriptorial redux, Ben and Jim\u2019s income from swamp trapping isn\u2019t to help Laurie begin her adult life with a small trust fund, but to get a high-priced lawyer (whom we never see) willing to defend Jim in a second trial that is miraculously set to occur by the film\u2019s end. The film\u2019s short running time suggests there may have been extra scenes to explain how this all comes into motion, but Lure<\/strong> was edited for pacing rather than logic, and it gets worse.<\/p>\n

The key reason Lantz has Jim deciding to leave the safety of the swamp is presumably so his daughter can live with normal townspeople, which ought to go swimmingly, since her 6 years in the wetlands didn\u2019t hinder her grasp of standard English syntax, weaken her sublime personal hygiene, fracture basic social etiquette, and affect her natural skill in picking up the rules of a waltz on the fly (something she couldn\u2019t do in the \u201941 film due to her two left feet).<\/p>\n

When Ben, Jim, and Laurie row back to town with their prisoner in the finale, they\u2019re greeted silently by an approving town \u2013 a complete about-face from the mob who a few scenes earlier were comfortable watching Ben getting dunked until he coughed up Jim\u2019s location in the swamp. It\u2019s a neat wrap-up that frankly makes no sense, but exists to give audiences closure.<\/p>\n

In addition to a loss of plot logic, a lot of secondary and tertiary characters are knocked down to singular or a handful of scenes. The sheriff does pretty much nothing; the general store owner\u2019s now Irish, and although his daughter bears the family brogue, actress Constance Smith loses it most of the time because she can\u2019t grapple with a Georgian accent filtered through her natural Irish gauze. The baby cat Laurie possessed in the \u201941 has been replaced with a raccoon that Noreen\u2019s dad allows to forage freely in the store\u2019s rice \/ flour \/ nut displays (with pee stains and poopy peppercorns no one seems to mind ingesting), and Noreen\u2019s bitch factor\u2019s been dialed down to a 5.0: instead of gleefully watching her ex-fiancee nearly drown, she\u2019s quickly overcome by guilt and brings Ben\u2019s father to the water\u2019s edge to rescue his son from the two goons (played by Harry Carter and a wiry Jack Elam).<\/p>\n

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Wrap-up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lure<\/strong> proves Technicolor and a younger, prettier love triangle don\u2019t necessarily improve upon a prior B&W classic. Lantz, however, did fix one awkward transition in the \u201941 version: where the story jumped from Ben, trapped in the swamp with Jim, to Ben suddenly arriving home with no buffer for the time jump (nor any explanation on how he got out), Lantz shows Ben trapping with Jim and Laurie before he\u2019s shown<\/em> the way out of the swamp. That part works swell.<\/p>\n

In addition to Edward Cronjager\u2019s cinematography, Franz Waxman adds some great mood music to the swamp scenes, and the score manages to soften the ridiculousness of Ben, Jim, and Laurie (aka Sheena, Siren of the Swamp) as they encounter a crazy animal menagerie of crocs, a bear, cottonmouth snakes, wild boar, fowl, and a feral bull!<\/p>\n

Lantz\u2019 handful of credits include Rogue River<\/strong> <\/strong>(1951), Shark River<\/strong> (1953), and River of No Return<\/strong> (1954) \u2013 note the common theme? \u2013 whereas director Negulesco would eventually settle into a cozy role directing films involving the misadventures and romances of three women in the following variants: How to Marry a Millionaire<\/strong> (1953), Three Coins in the Fountain<\/a> <\/strong>(1954), The Best of Everything<\/a><\/strong> (1959), and The Pleasure Seekers <\/strong>(1964). Perhaps stories of two or four women were simply dramatically flat, or sexually obscene.<\/p>\n

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\u00a9 2012 Mark R. Hasan<\/p>\n

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External References<\/em>:<\/p>\n

IMDB <\/a>— Soundtrack Album<\/a> — Composer Filmography<\/a><\/p>\n

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Amazon Links & KQEK.com’s Media Store:<\/em><\/p>\n

Amazon.ca<\/a> —– Amazon.com<\/a> —– Amazon.co.uk<\/a><\/p>\n

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Return to<\/strong>:\u00a0Home <\/a>\/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews<\/a> <\/em>\/\u00a0J to L<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Return to: Home \/\u00a0Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews \/ J to L . Film: Good \/ DVD Transfer: n\/a \/ DVD Extras: n\/a Label: n\/a\/ Region: n\/a\u00a0\/\u00a0Released: n\/a Genre: Drama \/ Suspense Synopsis: A trapper discovers a convicted murderer in the Okefenokee Swamp, and starts to fall for his hot daughter. Special Features: n\/a . . […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[18],"tags":[377,364,1150,1146,1151],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8nuyW-1an","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4487"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4487"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4487\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4508,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4487\/revisions\/4508"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4487"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4487"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kqek.com\/mobile\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4487"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}