MGM.  86 minutes.

US release: 11/23/29. 

DVD release:  2/21/12 from the Warner Archive Collection.

Cast: Joan Crawford (as "Alice 'Bingo' Dowling"), Robert Montgomery, Ernest Torrence, Holmes Herbert, John Miljan, Gwen Lee, Edward Nugent, Don Terry, Gertrude Astor, Milton Farney, Lloyd Ingram, Grace Cunard, Tom O'Brien, Wilson Benge.

Credits:  From the story by Charles E. Scroggins. Adaptation: Sylvia Thalberg, Frank Butler. Dialogue: Willard Mack. Director: Jack Conway. Camera: Oliver Marsh. Titles: Lucile Newmark. Editors: William Gray, Charles Hockberg.

Notes: Aside from her singing in Hollywood Revue of 1929, this is Joan's first appearance in a sound film. MGM also released a fully silent version of Untamed, presumably because all theaters were not yet outfitted for sound.

American Film Institute page

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Mordaunt Hall in the New York Times

November 30, 1929

Although "Untamed," the talking film now sojourning at the Capitol, possesses scenes that are supposed to be on the fringe of a jungle, and others aboard ship and in New York, this pictorial effusion never really appears to get outside the walls of a Hollywood studio. It does wander, however, from anything real, and the trite dialogue and vacillating natures of some of the persons involved make one shudder to think to what queer lengths producers can go with their relatively new vocalized toy.

The tale is concerned chiefly with the activities, romantic and pugilistic, of a girl who has been brought up in a wild section of South America. The varied glimpses are based on a story by Charles E. Scroggins, and while the main idea is not new, it is one with rich possibilities. Four years ago Robert T. Kane made an excellent comedy from Arthur Stringer's yarn, "The Wilderness Woman," a similar theme; but this current contribution has none of the ready wit or the human touches of the old silent film. Only unconscious humor is furnished by forced incidents, such as a fist fight at a dance between two men, with women urging on their respective favorites; a rough-and-tumble encounter between two girls, and a silly shooting episode.

Joan Crawford portrays the wild young creature, known as Bingo Dowling. Miss Crawford has a good voice, but she never strikes one as a girl who has been away from civilization for most of her life. There are moments when the fault is with Miss Crawford, and then there are instances where one is impelled to sympathize with her because of her lines. Robert Montgomery as Andrew McAllister, the romantic male of this adventure, is called upon to overdo the words "sweet" and "love," besides assertions that are seldom convincing.

Bingo, who is traveling with two middle-aged men she calls "Uncle Ben" and "Uncle Howard," falls in love with McAllister the instant she sets eyes upon him aboard a vessel bound for this city. She at once resents a fellow-passenger, Mrs. Mason, calling him "dear boy." And not long afterward Bingo, who in moments of anger threatens to "sock" on the nose offending persons, actually does attack Mrs. Mason.

McAllister is one of those noble young men who would never think of marrying wealth so long as he has none of this world's goods himself. Bingo has the million or so derived from her father's oil wells. McAllister goes to the parties given by Bingo in New York and he admires Bingo in the latest creations purchased in Fifth Avenue shops, but he can't consider marriage until he has found work and earns enough to keep a wife!

"Uncle Ben," splendidly played by Ernest Torrence, would really like to get rid of McAllister, for he has a notion that "Uncle Howard" is himself smitten with Bingo. Youth, however, in motion pictures as well as in sport, has a habit of being served: so through his clumsy tactics. "Uncle Ben" is actually responsible both for McAllister being shot in the shoulder by the wild maiden and then his ending the picture in her arms, certain to be her husband within the next few days.

Three or four songs are delivered in this film by Joan Crawford and Robert Montgomery. The melodies are among the unessentials.

The Brooklyn Eagle (1929):

If Untamed does little else for Miss Crawford, it proves that she is an actress for whom the microphone should hold no fear. Her diction is clear and unaffected, and while there is nothing in the lines that offers her opportunity for exceptional acting, she manages to make the impulsive heroine of the story somewhat more credible than the part deserves.

Pierre de Rohan in the New York Morning Telegraph (1929):

Miss Crawford seems more than a little ill-at-ease in the trappings of a jungle hoyden and only slightly more comfortable in the equally alien antics of a Manhattan debutante. She never, therefore, makes her role seem real and I doubt whether any other actress could.

Tom C. (June 2023)

Rating: -1/2 of 5

Untamed (1929) was Joan’s first talkie, disregarding her brief song-and-dance act in the “let’s-throw-everyone-on-the-lot-into-a musical" The Hollywood Revue of 1929, and Voices Across the Sea (1928), a promo short:   https://www.joancrawfordbest.com/voicesacrossthesea.htm     https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0331067/

(If anyone knows more about the above short, I would LOVE to hear about it!)

I rewatched Untamed immediately prior to writing this review, and was reminded of what a fun little movie it is. Untamed is not thought-provoking cinema replete with social commentary. It is airy. The dramatics are light and it's obvious what the conclusion will be, although how they get there is interesting, to say the least. Released as the Stock Exchange was crashing, Untamed reflects the hedonistic Jazz Age moreso than the grim Great Depression to come.

Joan has a fun character to work with. Bingo’s dad was an oil prospector who hit it big in South America and was murdered, and she was raised with little supervision. She’s a jungle-bred Eliza Doolittle. Her moniker “Bingo” comes from a time she socked a dude for getting fresh. Indeed, Bingo is prone to sock people throughout the movie, including Gertrude Astor, a silent star who went on to a long career as an extra, including about a half-dozen Joan films. In the silly boxing scene, it's clear that Bingo knows more about fisticuffs than love interest Andy (Robert Montgomery). Joan’s character arc entails transformation from backwoods wild child to big city sophisticate, which plays out amidst an on-again/off-again romance with Andy.

It's Joan’s name above the title, but her supporting cast is marvelous. This is the first of six film pairings with Montgomery. Unlike his annoying “Dill” in Foresaking All Others (1934), there is a modicum of depth and substance to Andy in Untamed, which makes his character likeable. Joan, as heiress to an oil fortune, courts Andy, a recent college grad with nary a penny to his name. The movie’s conflict revolves around whether Andy will (a) swallow his pride and live off Bingo’s fortune, (b) make it big on his own so he can support her lifestyle, or (c) convince Bingo to live on his modest salary. (I can tell you the resolution is outlandish and you’ll need to suspend your sense of disbelief.)

Shepherding Bingo at times and interfering at others is “Uncle” Ben Murchison, played by character actor par excellence Ernest Torrence. You may remember ET from Joan silents Twelve Miles Out (1927) and Across to Singapore (1928). Torrence specialized in screen villains, but by all accounts was a great guy off-screen. As in every movie of his I have seen, Torrence is great and adds much to Untamed.

Untamed is further noteworthy in that it has both of Joan’s most frequent cast mates: Gwen Lee (Marjory, Bingo's rival for Andy), and Bess Flowers in a bit part (Ms. Flowers---who, like Joan, was born in Texas---actually gets a few lines of dialogue here.)

For an early talkie, I think the music is very well integrated into the movie. It starts with Joan doing "Chant of the Jungle" accompanied by her usual energetic dancing. (Watch closely for the swaying guitar player to her left, who seems to be hamming it up for the camera!) Much nicer, in my opinion, is "That Wonderful Something (Is Love)," written by the team of Joe Goodwin and Louis Alter, and sung by Bob and Joan at different times throughout Untamed.

Untamed is helmed by 5-time Joan director, Jack Conway. Conway’s previous four Joan-directing efforts were all silent films, and Untamed has aspects of a silent film: intertitles, over-emoting, etc. All in all, this is a fun movie, although it suffers from many of the shortcomings of early talkies, plus Joan definitely overacts early on. Scenes such as the boxing scene are inane, but overall, it's a fun way to spend 86 min.

Stephanie Jones  (November 2022)

Rating:   of 5

In this, Joan's first talkie and Robert Montgomery's first of six co-starring roles with her, the question of the real meaning of love is explored through an intimate examination of primal instincts versus societal trappings. JUST KIDDING. This slight film comes nowhere near exploring anything.

Released a couple of months after the jazzy Our Modern Maidens and on the same day as Hollywood Revue of 1929, Untamed tries to simultaneously feature Joan's speaking/singing skills along with an initial rudimentary exotic plot that soon devolves into a madcap "modern" party film complete with the latter's usual least-common-denominator appeal: Is someone actually rich or just pretending to be? And: Does a phony gold-digger get his or her comeuppance?

The film opens in the wilds of South America, where Joan's "Bingo" lives with her oil wildcatter father. We first see Bingo warbling "Chant of the Jungle" before a rough and appreciative local crowd, which leads to her quite modern high-kicking dance before the natives, then her punching a local who gets too fresh. Soon after, her father is stabbed to death by this same local, who is in turn murdered by a pal of her father's. Now, this might seem to be an entire film plot in and of itself. Nah. All of the murders are just presented gratuitously. The father's death scene is needed so he can ask his pal "Ben" (Ernest Torrence) to take care of Bingo, and so he can leave her his millions, to be administered by Ben. (The death scene is, sorry to say, also the occasion for some very bad acting by Joan that seems to go on and on: "Daddy, oh my Daddy! My Daddy's dead? Oh Daddy!")

Cut to the ship that takes Bingo and guardian Ben to New York City. Here, the still-crude, barefoot, long-haired Bingo (says Ben: "She ain't housebroke!") literally runs into the smooth, rich-looking "Andy" (a consistently stilted Robert Montgomery), a suave-looking but, alas, penniless recent college graduate. She's immediately smitten and pokes her head inside his cabin, then lies on his bed, intentionally knocks over his photos, kisses him. And upon meeting his lady friend when coming out of his cabin, she punches the woman in the face!

At this point, about half-way through the film, a title card then takes us to NYC: "...from jungle to night-club...and all in a few months." Bingo and "Uncle Ben" now apparently share a townhouse, and she appears a changed woman: Fashionable bobbed hair, deco wardrobe, jewelry, and much more refined speech patterns. Joan is admittedly much better as a Young Modern than as her previous Jungle Girl incarnation, which relied far too heavily on dumbed-down facial and bodily expressions that she couldn't quite pull off.

Here in NYC, there's immediately a party scene, with lots of drunken, decadent, wise-cracking Young Moderns (led by Eddie Nugent, who appears in many such early films of Joan's). Despite her more simple upbringing, Bingo magically fits right in with her new milieu, and even adds a little extra: When a rejected suitor challenges Montgomery's "Andy" to fight, Bingo helps clear a boxing ring in the middle of the living room and exhorts: "Darling, you go out there and beat him to a pulp, because I love you!" She excitedly helps her beloved strip off his shirt and even, yes, PUNCHES his rival in the face at one point. (None of her newfound companions even blink an eye.)

There's an interesting plot in here somewhere (I dunno --- like "Pygmalion" maybe? Or, a darker reason for Uncle Ben's concern?), but this clumsy and haphazard movie can't quite condense it. The violence is tacked on gratuitously, as is the "plot point" of Uncle Ben mildly trying to keep Bingo and Andy from marrying---not at all integral to the proceedings. It did feel like a breath of fresh air to see Joan transformed from the dumb barefoot Bingo to her Modern incarnation, where she finally looks stunning and at home. But... There she was, all-of-a-sudden glam! How did this happen?

And the ending... OK, it's been nearly 100 years since this movie was first released, so I hope this isn't a "spoiler" (!): Bingo friggin' SHOOTS the guy? Where in the hell did THAT come from? That is something for an entirely different film, and completely incongruous here. What a mess of a film.

Jon Denson (January 2006)

Rating: of 5

Since both Crawford and Montgomery were very young when the film was made, it is a joy to watch. All the actors give spirited performances; Crawford and Montgomery are incredibly cute together, and are funnier than I have seen them in any other film! The theme song from the film, "Chant of the Jungle" (sung by Joan Crawford in the film), was a hit in 1929, when the film was made, and you'll be sure to get it stuck in your head even after the movie is over.

The plot of the film was also quite good, surprisingly. Robert Montgomery and Crawford's characters love each other, but because she is rich and he has little money, he is afraid to marry her because of what people might think. Bingo's uncle Ben also discourages the relationship and offers Montgomery money to leave her! Of course, everything goes astray and uncle Ben's plans fall through in a hilarious fashion. The film offers a fairly intelligent view of such a situation, as well.

Definitely a treat for classic film fans! This gem hopefully will continue to sparkle for a long time, with more airings on TCM and video release!