Wanda Nevada is probably one of the oddest movies ever made, yet it ends up working very well. Brooke Shields is salty and sassy and delightful but the two bad guys in this movie actually steal the show and they're performances are a 'must see' reason to watch this movie. Entertaining in a Pups, Ghost World kind of way.

I have to say I'm not sure what to make of this film after seeing Peter Fonda with Brooke Shields at the tender age of 14 making this film in the title role. Does the concept jailbait have any meaning here?

The film is set in the more innocent early 50s, in fact 1950 as one of our villains is worried about just getting a draft notice for Korea. Gambler/Drifer Peter Fonda winds young Brooke Shields in a poker game and then Brooke happens to get the map and some gold nuggets courtesy of a recently deceased Paul Fix. Fonda and Shields decide to go prospecting in the Grand Canyon.

You know had Wanda Nevada been cast with someone Brooke's age as the lead, say Christopher Atkins for instance this film might have worked as a kid's adventure film. But with Fonda or anyone his age the movie is strange at best.

Henry Fonda plays a grizzled old prospector with a beard like Gabby Hayes which completely covers his face together with goggle glasses. But his voice is unmistakable. He's only got one scene with his son and Wanda Nevada as mediocre and strange as it is has some historical significance as a joint project with father and son. Sister Jane did a whole lot better with On Golden Pond.

In the Southwest circa 1950, a poor gambler (not above a little cheating) wins an orphaned, would-be teen Lolita in a botched poker game. After getting hold of a treasure map promising gold in the Grand Canyon, the bickering twosome become prospectors. Peter Fonda is an actor/director asleep at the wheel; he is so enervated here, his lachrymose line-readings cancel out any irony intended in the dialogue. Whether trading would-be sassy barbs with Brooke Shields or fingering a barely-there mustache under his nose, Fonda doesn't reveal a character so much as an unsure actor being directed by an unsure filmmaker--himself! The movie has a few nice touches and pretty vistas, and the camera loves Shields' youthful beauty (although the young actress exhibits very little personality and no screen presence). Still, it's a fatigued, forgettable comedy-drama with lots of puttering along plus an odd cameo by Henry Fonda, nearly unrecognizable as a grizzled canyon man. * from ****