I expected something a with a little more class than this. Elvis goes from girl to girl so fast it's like where's his heart? Then he gets the hots for his counselor, a lady who is significantly older than him. Yuck! This kind of action was being made to look appealing, all the way back then? One of the other girls his age he runs off with is so trashy, and she says the most horrible thing- that she wants to go sliding right down into hell, like it's nothing to fear. In the movie are also some references to the Bible and Elvis quotes some scripture and carries his bible around. This does not make a trashy movie good...it remains what it is.Very disappointed in the content and story lines...I've watched some other movies with Elvis in them that were much better.

Probably Elvis Presley stretched his acting talent to its limits and beyond in Wild In The Country. In his career he never had a better screenwriter than playwright Clifford Odets who penned this one for the big screen. In fact I think that this might have been a project with the late James Dean in mind, Dean would have been perfect in a non-musical version of the film.Still Elvis does do a couple of numbers and the title song of the film and I Slipped, I Stumbled, I Fell sold a few platters back in the day for the King. Presley played a troubled youth not unlike what Dean played in East Of Eden and Rebel Without A Cause. He's a sensitive kid who shows a great writing talent, one that social worker Hope Lange hopes to cultivate. Some issues in her past cause her to overstep her bounds.Not only that for a troubled kid Elvis sure gets women flocking to him like town tart Tuesday Weld and good girl Millie Perkins. They all complicate his life in one way or another.In this and in Flaming Star both made for 20th Century Fox Presley showed some real promise as an actor, but the box office returns were way below what Elvis films normally grossed. After this Colonel Tom Parker struck strictly to a more lighthearted Elvis formula that the public wanted.Still in Wild In The Country legend Elvis treads softly on legend James Dean's territory and does well by Dean.

Wild in the Country (1961) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Extremely well acted but cliché ridden drama about a troubled young man (Elvis) and the therapist (Hope Lange) who tries to reach him so he can see he has talent as a writer. Back home the young man is caught between the rich girl (Millie Perkins) he loves and the trashy girl (Tuesday Weld) everyone thinks he should be with due to them thinking he's dump trash himself. This film reminded me a lot of various Tennessee Williams' stories as well as the 1958 Paul Newman film The Long Hot Summer as they all deal with a familiar subject and the screenplay here really doesn't go far from various clichés, which the viewer can see coming from a mile away. What really stands out here is the incredibly impressive cast, which is led by a very good performance by Elvis himself. This is certainly the best I've seen him and he manages to be very dramatic as well as come off charming, intelligent and sad. Thankfully he never tries to give a James Dean/Marlon Brando type performance and seems to be just giving his own performance. Hope Lange is equally impressive, although I think an older woman would have been better for the part. Millie Perkins gives a good, quiet performance but Tuesday Weld steals the show as the wild child. There's some good songs thrown in, although they really seem out of place in the film.

Elvis Presley as a hell-raising juvenile delinquent? I don't think so. That's what `Wild in the Country' would have us believe, but in reality he's the only honest and decent male in the movie. He plays a misunderstood young man from a poor white trash background who is sent to a psychologist as part of his parole after he gets into trouble (which he often does through no real fault of his own, naturally). Hope Lange plays the `older woman,' who discovers a budding literary talent in her charge. However, according to director Philip Dunne's memoirs the part was originally offered to Simone Signoret (!). Contemplating this pairing is more exciting than anything that happens in this movie. Miss Lange gives it a good try, but she was only about 3 years older than Elvis. Signoret would have made a man out of him in no time! This was supposed to be Presley's big dramatic breakthrough in a non-singing role, but according to Dunne, the bosses at Fox insisted upon interpolating songs. The movie also suffers from the Production Code censorship of the time (no actual going to bed with Lange, thank you), and Elvis was too nice to be really bad. Considering all the strikes against it, it's surprising that `Country' is still as watchable as it is. Presley is as good as he's allowed to be, and Tuesday Weld also spices things up as the requisite `bad girl' who tempts him. Call this one a `bad movie to love.'