is impossible to know exactly what Merchant, Ivory and scriptwriter Walter Marks had in mind for 'The Wild Party.' It is too simple-minded to be taken seriously but too earnest to work as a piece of campy nostalgia." Gene Siskel of the Chicago Tribune gave the film 1 star out of 4 and noted in a brief review that "Collectors of trash movies" might want to catch it while it played town. Gary Arnold of The Washington Post wrote that the film "can be recommended with a fairly clear conscience to connoisseurs of bad movies, but anyone looking for a serious night's entertainment will have only himself to blame. Although it's never as energetically, uproariously preposterous as The Carpetbaggers and The Oscar, the most diverting stinkers of the '60s, The Wild Party gives it the old college try." Jonathan Rosenbaum of The Monthly Film Bulletin stated that "it is difficult to imagine how even the longer versions of the film could overcome the formidable handicap of a miscast James Coco, an actor well-suited to the broad overkill of recent Preminger but quite inadequate for the emotional range and shading of a tragi-comic silent star." Rosenbaum did go on to state, however, "The songs and musical numbers are particularly delightful." The film was a financial flop. Ivory thought a problem, apart from the re-editing, was that the audience could not identify with any of the characters. "I think its mixed style – part musical, part melodrama, part character piece – would have gone down better if the audience could have entered more into those characters' lives." After the film's original release in 1975, other versions varying in length resurfaced on VHS and DVD, as well as a director's cut, 20 minutes longer, briefly released to French cinemas in 1976 and US cinemas in 1981. The film was banned in the United Kingdom until 1982, when the BBFC gave it a "18" rating. References External links Review of film by Jonathan Rosenbaum 1975 films American comedy-drama films Films about actors Films about filmmaking Films about films Films about Hollywood, Los Angeles Films based on poems Films directed by James Ivory Films set in 1929 Films set in country houses Films set in Los Angeles Films shot in California 1975 comedy films 1975 drama films 1975 comedy-drama films 1970s comedy-drama films 1970s English-language films Merchant Ivory Productions films