MAGNET contributing writer Jud Cost is sharing some of the wealth of classic films he’s been lucky enough to see over the past 40 years. Trolling the backwaters of cinema, he has worked up a list of more than 100 titles—from the ’20s through the ’80s—that you may have missed. A new selection, all currently available on DVD, appears every week.
Something Wild (1986, 113 minutes)
When it comes to rampaging, boy/girl road movies (Badlands, Young At Heart), Jonathan Demme’s Something Wild prefers its own gentler blend of lawlessness and humor.
Perfectly barbered and dressed like a stockbroker, Charles Driggs (Jeff Daniels, Jesse Eisenberg’s dad in The Squid And The Whale) is about to pay the penalty for a simple misdemeanor. After he slips his lunch check into his coat pocket and walks out of a bustling New York City diner, Lulu (Melanie Griffith) puts down a biography of Frida Kahlo and follows him out to the sidewalk.
“Hey, you didn’t pay for your lunch!” she shouts at Charles. With jet-black, blunt-cut hair, wearing a little black dress with a medallion the size of a tennis ball dangling from one ear, half a dozen necklaces and chokers and multiple bracelets clanking on her wrists, she saunters up to him. “You didn’t pay your bill, big boy,” she repeats. “I don’t know how this happened,” stammers a flustered Charles. “I’ll take care of it right now,” he says, reaching for his wallet.
“Lemme guess,” she says. “You don’t pay for your lunch, and maybe you steal the occasional candy bar or newspaper. You’re a closet rebel.” A slight grin cracks Charles’ composure as his pager starts to buzz. “I’ve got to get back to the office,” he says. “Which way you going? I’ll give you a ride,” offers Lulu, walking toward a battered green Pontiac convertible. “Don’t you have to go back to work?” asks Charles, pointing at the diner. “I don’t work there,” she says over her shoulder.
Lulu slides behind the wheel and hikes her dress halfway up her thighs for comfort, sitting on tropical print seat-covers that could have been painted by Kahlo. Charles cautiously gets in and says, “Boy, you really had me going back there.” Without a word, she grips the fluffy, pink steering-wheel cover, jams the accelerator to the floor and roars across the path of four vehicles forced to slam on their brakes.
When she tosses his pager out the window and begins to drain a pint of scotch, Charles squawks in protest. “Relax, Charlie. Take the afternoon off. You deserve it,” says Lulu, heading straight for the Holland Tunnel. She pulls up at the Country Squire liquor store somewhere in New Jersey and draws drive-by wolf howls from young men as she walks across the parking lot. “I’d like four pints of scotch,” she tells the Englishman behind the counter. After paying in cash, she notices something special up on the top shelf. “Oh, is that Glenlivet? It’s my favorite.” With the clerk dangling from a ladder, reaching for the bottle, Lulu quietly empties the cash register and hits the road. Charles has yet to figure out that he’s been “kidnapped” for a reason.
