The Wild Party

1974/U.S., 100 minutes

  • Executive producer: Joseph Beruh
  • Executive producer: Edgar Lansbury
  • Songs: Walter March
  • Music/Music director: Larry Rosenthal
  • Choreography: Ronald Kolodgie
  • Art Director: David Nichols
  • Director: James Ivory
  • Producer: Ismail Merchant
  • Screen Writer: Walter Marks
  • Author (Based On): Joseph Moncure March
  • More
Time also has a framing role in The Wild Party, shot soon after Autobiography of a Princess. It has a curious history, having been inspired by a blank-verse narrative poem of 1926 by Joseph Moncure March about a disastrous Greenwich Village party given by a vaudeville comic in his walk-up apartment. The lyricist Walter Marks saw in it the idea for a musical film, with the setting changed to Hollywood at the end of the silent-movie era. Shortly after the project was brought to Edgar Lansbury and Joseph Beruh, producers of Godspell and other Broadway musicals, Walter Marks's brother Peter discussed it with Ivory and mentioned that a director was needed. It was in this way that Ivory, as director, and Merchant, as coproducer with Lansbury and Beruh, were brought in. An important change was made in the script on which Ivory and Marks collaborated: the musical became a drama with music.

Cast

  • Nina FasoLady in Black
  • Waldo K BernsPoliceman
  • Tony PaxtonSergeant
  • Eddie LaurenceKreutzer
  • Annette FerraNadine
  • Bobo LewisWilma
  • Marya SmallBertha
  • Jennifer LeeMadeleine True
  • Regis J. CordicMr. Murchiso
  • Royal DanoMrs. Murchison
  • Royal DanoTex, Jolly's chauffeur
  • David DukesJames Morrison
  • Tiffany BowlingKate
  • Perry KingDale Sword
  • Raquel WelchQueenie
  • James CocoJolly Grimm

Crew

  • Executive producer: Joseph Beruh
  • Executive producer: Edgar Lansbury
  • Songs: Walter March
  • Music/Music director: Larry Rosenthal
  • Choreography: Ronald Kolodgie
  • Art Director: David Nichols
  • Director: James Ivory
  • Producer: Ismail Merchant
  • Screen Writer: Walter Marks
  • Author (Based On): Joseph Moncure March
  • Editor: Kent McKinney
  • Costume Designer: Ron Talsky
  • Costume Designer: Ralph Lauren
  • Photographer: Walter Lassally

Trailer