The universal response to Edward Dmytryk and John Fante‘s Walk on the Wild Side (Columbia, 2.21.62) was that the opening credit sequence (black cat prowling around in slow-mo, designed by Saul Bass) was better that the film itself.
I re-watched this sequence last night, and it occured to me that Elmer Bernstein‘s forceful, pounding music is what makes it work. The orchestra saws away with such brass and insistence that you’re quickly persuaded that the movie will be about much more than what’s suggested by the black cat slinking around.
And then you watch the movie and realize “oh, I get it…the cat was everything.”
