It's hard to believe nowadays, but there was a time when local TV stations would fill their schedules by showing old movies and old television shows, especially on weekends. This was the era before the ubiquitous infomercial culture took over the airwaves. True, the films were cut for time considerations and had commercial breaks, but it was all so normal that most of us didn't even think about it. We just relished the chance to watch movies all afternoon on a Saturday and Sunday, even movies we had seen already. WILD SEED was one of those movies that seemed to show up quite often during the late 1960s and through the 1970s. The film was released in 1965, but I never knew it existed until it played on TV. Maybe it had a short theatrical run, or maybe it just didn't play in the theaters I had access to.
The plot of the film is rather simple. Seventeen-year-old Daphne Simms (Celia Kaye) sneaks out of her New York apartment, where she lives with her adoptive parents, in the dead of night. She intends to hitchhike to Los Angeles to meet her real father. Daphne's real mother, who died when the girl was five, had told her stories about meeting and falling in love with a young military man. She left Daphne a few romantic letters from this man, who unfortunately disappeared from her life. Daphne knew her father's name, but thought he was dead until, by accident, she learned he was alive and well and owned a piano store in Los Angeles. She wrote him a letter and got no response. Nevertheless, she was determined to meet him and get to know him. Her hitchhiking soon gets her into trouble when an older man tries to sexually assault her. She manages to get away, but her belongings get left in the man's fleeing car. At a gas station, she meets a young drifter who calls himself Fargo (Michael Parks). Fargo sizes up the innocent girl as an opportunity to hustle some fast cash, and Daphne is justifiably wary of him. Soon, however, they begin to be friendly, and Fargo agrees to help her get to L.A. by riding the rails.
Naturally, Daphne quickly falls in love with this handsome, enigmatic young man, and, also quite naturally, Fargo, the quintessential loner, tries hard to resist falling in love with her. But, if he didn't, then the movie would have no point. So, they enter in what appears to be a very chaste love affair, with the worldly Fargo trying to protect Daphne as much as he can. Along the endless stretch of railroad tracks, they talk about life, their pasts, their dreams, and have one major run-in with the law, which doesn't take kindly to hobos and runaways hopping on and off of train cars. They also get temporarily sidetracked by Fargo becoming seriously ill and regaining his health because of Daphne's resourcefulness.
When they reach L.A., Daphne's father is cordial but not interested in having this young girl become a part of his life, as he's married and has other children. Fargo learns that the so-called love affair with Daphne's mother was nothing more than a brief sexual encounter lasting a few days. Daphne's mother had made up a romantic story for her daughter's benefit and wrote those romantic letters herself. Her real father has sent for her adoptive parents to come and take her back to New York. Upon learning this, Fargo beats the man senseless. Fargo tells Daphne the truth about her father and tells her to go home with parents who obviously love her. The two say goodbye in a bar where Fargo is in the process of getting drunk. Later in the night, he leaves the bar and finds Daphne waiting for him. She's decided to stay with him, and they walk off together into an uncertain future.
The most important thing to realize about these two young people is that they are doomed. The next most important thing to realize is that it doesn't matter, not to them or to anyone watching the movie. This is an allegory about love and loneliness, with a dash of hopelessness thrown into the mix. There is a certain realism to the movie, with location shots and exciting cinematography. But these two young drifters almost seem to be a little too healthy, too well-groomed for the kind of hard existence they're supposedly living. But once the viewer accepts this as a romantic fantasy, such details aren't problematic. Of course, Daphne doesn't go home with her parents, choosing instead to a romantic life on the road with the young man she loves. She may even have dreams of reforming Fargo and convincing him to settle down in a domestic framework involving marriage, children and honest work. Then again, maybe she doesn't. Maybe Fargo has reformed her.
At one point in their journey, safe in a nice, comfortable train car, Daphne challenges Fargo about his life as a drifter: "You just keep going from nowhere to nowhere. What's going to happen to you when you get older, and you can't run so fast? Don't you ever feel that you need somebody?" This is a question Fargo can't answer, and it remains unanswered at the end of the film.
Michael Parks had already worked in television, but WILD SEED marked his feature film debut. Parks is the logical successor to James Dean, both in looks and acting talent. In fact, I think he had the potential to surpass Dean as an actor, and I've always seen him as the right choice to play Joe Buck in MIDNIGHT COWBOY, not that he was ever considered for the role. He made several films during the 1960s and starred in the TV show Then Came Bronson, as well as making his mark as a singer. He was quite the hot young actor for a while, but eventually his career faltered as he got the reputation of being "difficult". Still, he continued working and appeared in such films as KILL BILL 1 & 2 and TWIN PEAKS. Parks died in 2017 at the age of seventy-seven. Celia Kaye (Burkholder), who made her film debut in 1964 in ISLAND OF THE BLUE DOLPHINS, for which she won a Golden Globe award, had a less prolific acting career in films and television. She was married for several years to the director John Milius. She gives a natural, unaffected performance as Daphne.
A familiar and very welcome face turned up early in the film when Rupert Crosse, known for SHADOWS (1959) and THE REIVERS (1969) appears as a hobo.
I always loved reconnecting with this film whenever it came back on TV. I was a teenager myself the first time I saw it and couldn't resist the romanticism and adventure of living a life on the road as a drifter. Maybe it was the feeling of loneliness that affected me more than anything else. It's hard to say. At some point, I lost touch with the film and pretty much forgot about it. Recently, I happened to come across the title when I was searching an online site that sells bootlegs, copies made from VHS tapes or recorded from television. I sent away for the DVD-R, and it was very well-made, considering the circumstances, and was quite watchable. There were many things I remembered about the film and even more that I had forgotten. But it was an emotional experience seeing it again. That atmosphere of loneliness and hopelessness seemed even heavier than it had when I was younger. What impressed me the most was Michael Parks' great talent as an actor. This man deserved to be a major star.
But the film haunted me. I hadn't seen it since I was in my late twenties or early thirties. Now, I was in my 70s. So much time had passed, and I wasn't watching the movie with young eyes, with so much time ahead of me, with that sense of adventure. Fargo and Daphne were still drifting together, riding the rails. To where? To what conclusion? I watched them as they wandered off into the dark Los Angeles night at the end of the film, knowing that they were doomed. And I felt myself walking off into a dark night of my own. What haunted me were the words Daphne said to Fargo when she was challenging him about being a drifter, words that mean something entirely different to me now:
You just keep going from nowhere to nowhere. What's going to happen to you when you're older, and you can't run so fast?
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