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Wild Women
(1918) United States of America
B&W : Five reels
Directed by Jack Ford (John Ford)
Cast: Harry Carey [Cheyenne Harry], Molly Malone [the princess], Martha Mattox [the queen], Edward Jones (Ed Jones) [Pelon], Vester Pegg [Pegg], E. Van Beaver [the boss], Wilfred Taylor [?] (Wilton Taylor)? [‘Slugger’ Joe]
The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated, production; distributed by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated [A Universal Special Feature]. / Produced by Harry Carey. Scenario by George Hively, from a screen story by Harry Carey and Jack Ford (John Ford). Cinematography by [?] Ben F. Reynolds and/or John W. Brown (Jack Brown)? / © 18 February 1918 by The Universal Film Manufacturing Company, Incorporated [LP12083]. Released 25 February 1918. / Standard 35mm spherical 1.33:1 format.
Comedy: Western.
Reviews: [Variety, 1 March 1918, page 42] “Wild Women,” Universal’s five-reel feature, will probably draw between its title and its paper featuring grass-clad ukelele cuties, but it will not come up to an audience’s expectations. “Wild Women” is the old dream idea, with variations. Cheyenne Harry gets all the boys of the Bar-I Ranch to enter a Frisco rodeo to win cash prizes and help out one of the cowpunchers, whose wife is in need of several hundred dollars for an operation. Cheyenne and the boys win the steer-throwing and other contests and walk away with the prizes. That night they celebrate, visiting a gilded cafe where a chorus of Honolulu belles are doing hula-hula dances in the cabaret. Finally they all go to sleep in a back room. The rest of the five-reeler is Cheyenne’s dream of being shanghaied with his friends on an old sailing brig and washed up on a desert isle when the ship burns. There the castaways encounter a tribe of Hawaiian dancers, whose angular queen insists upon marrying Cheyenne. The cowpuncher succeeds in avoiding the queen and is just kissing the pretty princess of the isle when he awakens in the back room. “Wild Women” would do for a one-reel comedy, but it is entirely too slender for five. The producers apparently think the glimpses of the Hawaiian girls in their alfalfa skirts,dashing about the ocean’s edge, will put over the picture. Harry Carey is the cowpuncher, Cheyenne Harry. The only other person who stands out is Molly Malone, as the pretty princess.
Survival status: The film is presumed lost.
Current rights holder: Public domain [USA].
Listing updated: 21 May 2012.
References: Braff-Universal n. 9176; Hirschhorn-Universal p. 30; Sinclair-Ford pp. 24, 230 : Variety-19180301 p. 42 : Website-AFI; Website-IMDb.
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