The Wild and the Innocent

The young, the old and the restless!

The Wild and the Innocent is directed by Jack Sher and Sher co-writes the screenplay with Sy Gomberg. It stars Audie Murphy, Joanne Dru, Gilbert Roland, Sandra Dee, Jim Backus, George Mitchell and Strother Martin. A CinemaScope/Eastman Color production, the music is by Hans J. Salter and cinematography by Harold Lipstein.

Plot has Murphy as young mountain man Yancy Hawks who experiences big city life for the first time. Reluctantly on his journey into town he has acquired a companion, young Rosalie Stocker (Dee), whose father tried to trade her for some of Yancy's beaver pelts. Once in town the two fishes out of water meet trouble and learn more about life in the process.

It's a bit of an oddity...

This is a different sort of Western than what we usually get. We often get "non credible character in incredible situations" or "credible characters in incredible situations". What we get here is "credible characters in CREDIBLE situations", and yet we still get adventure and excitement out of the every day events that escalate into life and death struggles. This movie has a lot of charm, and some great characters. The supporting characters truly make this film as good as it really is. Most notable is Jim Backus, who isn't a millionaire in this movie, but he does show up in some big movies. He may be a father to a rebel without a cause, or a centurion feeding Androcles to a lion, Here, he represents the "normal folk" of a town, the one w...