The Wild Party

The worst Ivory-Merchant film I've seen is THE WILD PARTY, very loosely based on the Roscoe Arbuckle scandal. More specifically it's based on a hideously maudlin poem by Joseph Moncure March published in 1928. The Ivory-Merchant team so famous for its impeccable period detail in any number of films totally flops in capturing the 1929 Holly glam look. What they did capture is the 1975 look. James Coco stars as Jolly Grimm, a washed up silent film comic hoping for a comeback in his latest and self-backed film on the life of Brother Juniper. His live-in girlfriend and former extra is played by Raquel Welch. She gets to sing and dance to one of the film's many horrid songs. Perry King plays a flashy new film star, Tiffany Bolling plays his jaded party date, Bobo Lewis plays the maid, Royal Dano plays Tex the former stuntman, David Dukes plays the guy who writes the poem. The majority of the cast is unrecognizable. The story hits of just about every stereotype. There's the Valentino type, a vamp who's really a lesbian, studio heads with thick Euro accents, and worst of all is the little puke who'll do anything to get into the movies so she crashes the party and does an Isadora dance draped in dish towels.

Everything is wrong although there could have been a decent movie with James Coco and none of the rest of the cast. The costumes are all wrong as is the women's hair and makeup. The several songs are the type that Paul Williams used to sing with that gag-worthy diction of his. There are also lots of clips of Coco playing Brother Juniper in the silent movie. As the cannibals trap him and lead him to the giant cauldron, Juniper says..... "You can't boil me. I'm a friar!" And that's the high point of the film.