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Wild at Heart (1990)
In writer/director David Lynch's R-rated Wizard
of Oz-related,
neo-noirish lovers-on-the-run road film - and a cult arthouse romance
film - the winner of the Cannes Film Festival's
Palme d'Or; it was based on the 1990 novel by Barry
Gifford, part one of a series of Sailor and Lula stories, entitled Wild
at Heart: The Story of Sailor and Lula:
- during the opening title credits,
a simple wooden stick match ignited and became a blast furnace
of blazing heat, emphasizing one of the film's themes - pyromania; it
told about two sex-crazed, star-crossed lovers who went on the
run westward from North Carolina
- the two lovers were: Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage),
a 23 year-old, Elvis-loving bad-boy, who claimed his snakeskin
jacket was "a symbol of my individuality and my belief in personal freedom,"
and Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern), a sex-loving,
blonde, horny, 20 year-old southern girl, Sailor's girlfriend,
nicknamed "Peanut"; she described to Sailor how she had been sexually abused and raped
at age 13 by her father's business partner "Uncle Pooch" (Marvin
Kaplan) - and had an abortion
- according to Lula's deranged
mother Marietta Fortune (Best Supporting Actress-nominated Diane
Ladd, Laura Dern's real mother), Lula's father Clyde had allegedly
died in a self-immolating suicide, although in reality, he was
murdered by Marietta's hired gangster-friend Marcelles Santos (J.
E. Freeman). Her cackling mother was complicit and witnessed the
killing. Marietta was compared to the Wicked Witch by Lula, and
Sailor called her a "piece of white trash." Marietta feared that since Sailor had been
a "driver" for Marcelles, he would know that Clyde's
death was homicide and that Marietta was responsible

Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage)
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Lula Pace Fortune (Laura Dern)
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Marietta Fortune (Diane Ladd)
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- the film opened in Cape Fear
in southeastern NC, where Sailor and Lula were at a dance hall. Sailor
was confronted by switchblade-wielding, African-American hired killer
Bob Ray Lemon (Gregg Dandridge), and wrongly accused of propositioning
Lula's crazed, monstrous, vindictive and obsessed mother Marietta
Fortune in the dance hall's restroom: ("Crazy f--kin' bad boy,
tryin' to f--k your girl's Mama!").
Sailor immediately fought back against the accusation and viciously
killed Bob Ray in public view, and subsequently was charged with
manslaughter
- [Note: The truth (revealed later) was that Marietta
had drunkenly attempted to seduce Sailor in the men's restroom in
the dance hall: ("Sailor boy! How'd you like to f--k Lula's
Mama?...Lula's Mama would like to f--k you"), but he rejected
her. Humiliated, Marietta became fixated with jealousy over Sailor's
interest in Lula and took revenge. She threatened Sailor: "I'm
gonna cut your balls off and feed 'em to ya." She immediately
hired Bob Ray Lemon to keep Sailor away from her daughter. After
Bob Ray's death, Marietta warned and reprimanded Lula that she must
never see Sailor again: "And you know you aren't, and I mean
are not gonna see him ever. End of story."]
- Sailor served almost two years
of a prison term in the Pee Dee Correctional Institution. When he
was released from prison, Lula disobediently and happily picked up
Sailor in her convertible and they drove to a room at the Cape Fear
Hotel to make passionate love. Sailor proposed breaking his parole
and heading westward with Lulu to California to escape Lula's domineering
mother
- back for a night of dancing on the Cape Fear dance
floor, Sailor fought off a suitor who inappropriately approached
Lula, and then serenaded her with Elvis' "Love Me." Later
during further hot love-making in their hotel room, he vowed that
he would only sing his favorite Elvis love song: "Love Me Tender" to
his future wife. The next morning, she told him she had visions of
the Wicked Witch of the East flying in. He responded: "The way
your head works is God's own private mystery." As they smoked
cigarettes in bed, Lula told him: "You remind me of my Daddy,
you know. Mama told me he liked skinny women with breasts that stood
up and said 'Hello'."
- Lula's persistent mother Marietta hired two others
to hunt down and retrieve Lula and get rid of Sailor:
- Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton), a level-headed
private detective, Marietta's part-time boyfriend
- Marcelles Santos (J. E. Freeman), a cold, menacing,
and evil criminal gangster/assassin accompanying Farragut; another
of Marietta's boyfriends; he had helped Marietta get rid of her
husband Clyde by setting him on fire (a fact known by Sailor)
Some of the Notorious Minor Characters
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Johnnie Farragut (Harry Dean Stanton)
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Marcelles Santos (J. E. Freeman)
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"Mr. Reindeer"
(W. Morgan Sheppard)
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Juana (Grace Zabriskie)
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Perdita Durango (Isabella Rossellini)
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Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe)
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- during their early search for
the fugitives, Marcelles contacted his mysterious, decadent crime
mob boss "Mr. Reindeer"
(W. Morgan Sheppard) (pictured on the toilet with a topless dancer and
then with two topless handmaidens or valets), who then communicated (via
a symbolic reference to two 'silver dollars' or hits) to an unseen voodoo
woman - handicapped Juana (Grace Zabriskie). The job was to eliminate
two individuals: Farragut (to prevent him from learning more about their
dubious and illicit criminal activities) and Sailor
- after Sailor and Lula entered New Orleans and had
sex in their hotel room, she complimented him on his love-making
skills, with a Wizard of Oz reference:
"Sometimes, Sail', when we're makin' love, you
just about take me right over that rainbow. You are so aware
of what goes on with me, I mean, you pay attention. And I swear,
baby, you got the sweetest cock. It's like it's talkin' to me
when you're inside. Like it's got this little voice all its own.
You get right on me."
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in the back of a night-club bar known as Robbie's
in New Orleans during their fugitive flight, Sailor recalled and
described to Lula (in order to excite her) an especially memorable
sexual encounter he once had as a 'bad boy' with Irma (Charlie
Spradling) when he was visiting his cousin, Junior Train, in Savannah:
"When she got almost to the top step, I stuck
my hand between her legs from behind...Man, I had a boner with
a capital O. Anyway, I found her lyin' in her room filled with
assault weapons and 'Spankhouse' magazines, so I slid my hand
between her legs again and she closed her thighs on it....Well,
her face was half-pushed into the pillow, and I remember she
looked back over her shoulder at me and said, 'I won't suck you.
Don't ask me to suck you.'...Anyway, dig this. She turns over,
peels off them orange pants, spreads her legs real wide and
says to me: 'Take a bite of Peach'."
- in response, Lula urged him: "Jesus, honey! You
more than sort of got what you come for. Uh, oh. Baby, you'd better
run me back to the hotel. You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt." Sailor
replied: "Say no more, but go easy on me, sweetheart. Tomorrow
we got a lot of drivin' to do." After another bout of feverish
love-making, Lula speculated: "Wouldn't it be fabulous if we
someway stayed in love for the rest of our lives?...It'd make the
future so simple and nice."
- meanwhile, Mr. Reindeer complied and carried through
with Santos' request to murder Farragut, causing Marietta to go crazy
with fear for hiring him - she painted her entire face with red lipstick,
and called Farragut to announce her arrival in New Orleans the next
evening. However, it was arranged with Mr. Reindeer's henchmen Reggie
(Calvin Lockhart), Dropshadow (David Patrick Kelly) and Juana to
capture and kill Farragut in New Orleans. He was assaulted in his
hotel room, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered (a gunshot to the back
of the head) by the group led by Juana
- during their car journey westward
somewhere in rural Texas (on a metaphoric
"Yellow Brick Road"), Sailor and Lula came upon an ominous
car accident - and a dying and bloody car wreck victim Julie Day
(Sherilyn Fenn) who was confused and complained about "sticky
stuff in my hair" (unaware that she had blood in her hair),
and that she couldn't find a bobby pin, her wallet or her purse before
she collapsed and died in front of them
- in Big Tuna, TX, Sailor spoke to an old associate
- bleached-blonde Perdita Durango (Isabella Rossellini) - who confirmed
to Sailor that Marietta and Santos had together conspired to immolate
Lula's father, and that they believed Sailor knew of their crime.
Perdita was the Mexican mistress of psychotic, hot-headed ex-Marine
and no-good hitman Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe) (with rotten teeth).
Lula revealed her pregnancy and morning sickness to Sailor, who promised
he wouldn't let things get any worse
- in a tense sequence, Bobby sexually threatened and
assaulted Lula in her motel room after crudely taunting her:
"Ya know, I sure do like a girl with nice tits
like yours who talks tough and looks like she can f--k like a
bunny. Do you f--k like that, huh? Do ya f--k it like a bunny?
Cause if ya do, baby, I'll f--k ya good. Like a big ol' jackrabbit
bunny, jump all around that hole. Bobby Peru don't come up for
air."
He caused her to be extremely traumatized by their
encounter (when he asked "Am I scarin' ya? Is your pussy wet?
Is it wet?"), and then demanded that she say: "F--k me!" But
then after groping her down her entire body and her weak whispering
of the two words, he humiliated and pushed her away: ("Someday
honey I will — but I gotta get goin'"). As he left,
Lula clicked her red-slippered heels together multiple times (another
Oz reference) and burst into tears
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afterwards, Bobby urged Sailor to join him to rob a feedstore in Lobo, TX,
by convincing Sailor that he needed "easy
money" now that Lula was pregnant: "Really could set you and that little
lady up good." Sailor agreed: "That kinda money will get
us a long way down that Yellow Brick Road." Sailor was unaware
that it was part of Bobby's plan to make sure that he didn't survive
the robbery due to a "bad accident" (by providing him with
a gun loaded with blanks). Lula was suspicious that Sailor was speaking
to "black angel" Peru: "This whole world is wild at
heart and weird on top. I wish you'd sing me 'Love Me Tender'. Oh,
I wish I was somewhere over that rainbow."
- during the aborted heist with Perdita serving as the
getaway driver, after Bobby had shot and seriously wounded the two
feedstore employees, he raced outside and was shot multiple times
by an alert police officer. As he fell to his knees, the wounded
Bobby experienced a startling death when he blew off his own head
with his sawed-off shotgun. Unharmed, Sailor was arrested by police,
and knew he had let down Lula. He was sentenced to serve a prison
term (of almost six years). Marietta arrived at the police station
with Santos to fly Lula back home to North Carolina
- in the final scene set almost six years later, Sailor was released from
prison after serving his time, and was greeted by Lula at the train depot
in Los Angeles (she had relocated there), now with their infant child
named "Pace" (Glenn Walker
Harris Jr.). After driving off a short distance, Sailor had decided
that it was a "mistake" to get together again with her
and raise a family, since he felt he wasn't good enough for her.
He referenced "The Cisco Kid" and "Pancho" in
his decision, and told Pace:
"If ever somethin' don't feel right to you, remember
what Pancho said to the Cisco Kid: 'Let's win, before we're dancing
at the end of a rope, without music.'"
- as he left them and walked away back to the train
depot on foot, he was surrounded, assaulted and knocked out by
nine gang members after he derided them as faggots: ("What
do you faggots want?"). During unconsciousness, he received
an hallucinatory visitation from the Good Witch (Sheryl Lee). Although
he was "wild at heart," she advised: "If you are
truly wild at heart, you'll fight for your dreams." She urged
him to remain with Lula: "Don't turn away
from love, Sailor. Don't turn away from love."

Sailor Knocked Unconscious by Gang
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Sailor's Visitation by the Good Witch (Sheryl Lee)
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Sailor Serenading Lula with "Love Me Tender"
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- Sailor apologized to his dumbfounded gang attackers
for calling them homosexuals: "You've taught
me a valuable lesson in life." The film
ended with an ironic, cliched happy ending, when Sailor had a change
of heart, ran back to Lula driving away in her convertible but stuck
in traffic, and told her: "I
just met the Good Witch." He reunited with her - singing "Love
Me Tender."
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Sailor and Lula's Love-Making at the Cape Fear Hotel


Mr. Reindeer With a Prostitute-Dancer (Lisa Ann Cabasa)

Mr. Reindeer's Resident Valets (Mia M. Ruiz and Valli Leigh)

Sailor and Lula in New Orleans
Sailor's Tale in New Orleans About Irma (Charlie Spradling):
"Take a bite of peach"

Lula: "You got me hotter than Georgia asphalt"

Lula's Psychopathically-Crazed Mother Marietta

On Their Road-Trip - in San Antonio, TX

The Injured and Dying Car Accident Victim

Lula's Revelation to Sailor: "I'm pregnant"



Bobby Peru's Sexual Taunting and Attack on Lula

Lula Clicking Red Heels Together

Death Scene of Bobby Peru

Sailor Arrested and Jailed

Marietta Retrieving Lula

Sailor Greeted at Train Station by Lula and Pace
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