Jungle Girl Raped and Snuffed
A variation of Laura plus... schizophrenia?
Having seen this moving-picture show recently for the first fourth dimension I found information technology surprisingly arty. The nomenclature inexpensive indie doesn't do the moving picture justice. The photography in sharp blackness and white – well, far more than black than white -, the quirky camera angles and the editing are about as good as in more famous moving picture noirs of that period similar, for example, Osculation Me Deadly.
The story has a really uneasy feel to it. I am not sure if all that surrealism is intentional or mainly caused by a low budget, I just know that is is damn constructive. The action unfolds in 1 night night and feels like a claustrophobic nightmare. There are several similarities to Otto Preminger's Laura, the always constructive John Carradine is cast as a rich, arrogant fine art critic in the line of Waldo Lydecker. And he delivers all right. But who is Laura? There are 3 different women who occasionally pop upward, dead or alive, in photographs on billboards, in sketches or framed paintings. They are not real simply rather like figments in a man's imagination. Perchance they are the same woman altogether? Very confusing. And who is the man who imagines those women? Is information technology the caricaturist who thinks he is a failure as an creative person? Or the alcoholic policeman? I could not help assuming that they were one and the same person, too. Just retrieve of David Lynch's Lost Highway! It is not actually clear, what is going on in this pic. People exercise strange things. Sneaking upwardly to an apartment at 3 a.yard. request urgently, hysterically for a caricature, entering another apartment at 3.30 a.m., having a give-and-take with a woman in her bedroom while in the background the woman'south husband tosses uncomfortably, desperately trying to sleep, inbound a third apartment at 3.45 a.1000. putting a caput on the bust of Jayne Mansfield who'south reclining in that location - without any explanation. The law detectives refuse to take people to the precinct and want to deport the investigation into a murder in a sleazy bar near where it happened. These foreign scenes are not cheap - they work in a way that you lot start feeling slightly feverish.
The prepare blueprint is very good. Several fifties interiors and gadgets are nicely displayed. I admire all those movies in which nifty upshot is created with fiddling means. Ane reason why I similar motion-picture show noir where this tendency at times results in existent art.
20 out of 21 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Surprisingly expert
Female person Jungle is a fairly good and at times noteworthy low upkeep indie characteristic. Produced by star Burt Kaiser, who plays a down on his luck sketch artist with the longest 1950's pilus this side of Elvis, the pic as well features Lawrence Tierney, who sleepwalks through his role as a drunken cop trying to win back the respect of his sergeant by helping solve a murder mystery. Tierney's career was entering crisis mode at this point thanks to his ain drinking problem, and though he's obviously trying his best here, it shows. The story is fairly feeble, but the fine bandage--which also includes John Carradine, Attack of the Giant Leeches man Bruno Ve Sota, an unglamorous looking Jayne Mansfield, and Davis Roberts--is worth watching. For a poverty row cheapie the film looks quite good--a testament, perhaps, to the effective piece of work of DoP Elwood Bredell, who always did good work with little money on 'B' classics similar Human being Made Monster and Phantom Lady.
12 out of xiii found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Late noir meets the drive-in exploitation flick
There's a persuasive argument to be mounted that the terminate of the so-called Golden Age of Hollywood flick-making can be ascribed not to the studios' divestiture of its theater bondage but to the explosion, in the motorized order of the 1950s, of bulldoze-in theaters, where the master attraction was non on the screen. Up to that point, even the lowliest second feature was apt to bear witness at least a modicum of craft and plausibility. The exploitation movies changed all that, ushering in an era when just about anything goes – or, oft, naught.
American International Pictures was the outfit that pioneered fodder for the teenage popcorn-and-petting trade. In 1956, it released one of its few features that might be considered even marginally noir – Female Jungle (also chosen The Hangover). Neither championship quite fits, though the second has a bit more claim to legitimacy than the offset, which was just a ploy to pack 'em in.
After the gala premiere of her debut flick, a starlet leaves a seedy bar and meets her quietus at the hands of a strangler. For the next hour or so, Lawrence Tierney, John Carradine, Jane Mansfield and half a dozen other characters get racketing around through the night on a serial of wild-goose chases. Tierney plays an off-duty policeman whose long evening angle his elbow resulted in a blackout; he thinks he might accept been the killer. Carradine plays a gossip columnist whose helped the expressionless starlet's career, only to be jilted. Mansfield (in her screen debut) seems to exist playing a phone call-girl who'due south in dearest with an out-of-piece of work caricaturist whose wife might exist the next victim of….
All that said, Female Jungle remains watchable, if barely. It was AIP'due south policy to engage a few actors on the way upward and a few more on the mode downwards, filling upwardly the rest of the slots with whoever was handy (both the producer and director have parts in the movie). But Tierney, by this fourth dimension seriously on the skids and persona-non-grata in the major studios, exudes some of his rough magic while Carradine, looking peculiarly suave, gives it his one-time-trouper'southward all. And Mansfield, of course, has her own morbid fascination. There'south a peculiar attraction to some of this belatedly-50s sleaze; if you're into it, this is the flick for you.
sixteen out of 18 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
The classy side of AIP
Lawrence Tierney was given numerous low-life/tough-guy roles throughout the forty's in such noirs as Built-in TO KILL (1947) and THE DEVIL THUMBS A RIDE (1948), until he gained himself a bad proper name in Hollywood for his constant bar-brawls and arrests. The Tierney architype was resurected in the l'south when minor studios decided to milk the one-time noir icon for what he was worth. His only 50'southward come up-back films I know of are THE HOODLUM (1951-United Artists) and THE FEMALE JUNGLE (1956-ARC), directed by the very under-rated Bruno VeSota right after DAUGHTER OF HORROR.
Lawrence plays a bum alcoholic detective who investigates in the murder of an actress committed outside the aforementioned bar he was drinking in. The plot unfolds itself from flashbacks. Producer, Burt Kaiser plays an alcoholic and unemployed artist, married to waitress, Kathleen Crowley. Kaiser is asked one nighttime by a mysterious gossip columnist (the wonderfully sinister John Carradine, looking suave as always in white necktie and tails) to have his characature painted. Kaiser and Tierney both have affairs with Candy, a deliciously slutty bombshell (Jayne Mansfield, looking stunning in her film debut). Other suspects include George, the black janitor, James Kodl providing some intentional laughs as Joe, the bar owner and Cornelius Keefe (billed every bit Jack Hill!) as the Chief.
During World War 2, anyone who went to the movies had no choice but to pay money and view low-budget black-and-white quickies beacuse of the restrictions. Bottom-of-the-butt studios like PRC and Monogram were in their element turning 'em out faster than they e'er did before. This likewise gave film noir (considered lowbrow entertainment dorsum then) an opportunity to exist shown to wider audiences. The 50's saw just most every movie theatre-goer heading for the 70mm CinemaScope epics and big-proper name blockbusters leaving all other kinds of films to exist viewed past nonexistent crowds at either art-house or drive-in theatres. It as well saw the very terminal of the movie noir echoeing it's style through the minor studio arrangement. Female JUNGLE, a keen noir by many standards, was sold to Sam Arkoff and James H. Nicholson for ARC (pre-AIP) in 1956 and was dumped on a drive-in double-neb with OKLAHOMA WOMAN, a western directed by Roger Corman! I notwithstanding don't think that FEMALE JUNGLE has got the appreciation information technology deserves. Information technology is a superior film noir full of interesting depression-life characters and dimly lit side-streets which all of united states noir-lovers crave for in a flick.
In an interview, Jayne Mansfield said that Female JUNGLE "was filmed in two weeks and led to nix". She was paid $150 for starring and so returned to her job every bit a popcorn-girl in a cinema earlier returning to the screen over again in WILL SUCCESS SPOIL Rock HUNTER? Lawrence Tierney wound upwards driving a taxi cab in Central Park earlier being resurected again (!) to play his tough-guy role in John Huston'south PRIZZI'S HONOR (1985) and over again in Tarantino's RESERVOIR DOGS (1993). Bruno VeSota later directed THE Encephalon EATERS (1958) and INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES (1962), starred in numerous drive-in features throughout the late-l's and 60's (TEENAGE DOLL, A Bucket OF Blood, THE CHOPPERS...) earlier dying of a centre attack in 1976 aged 54.
17 out of 18 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
John Carradine and Jayne Mansfield
Alert: Spoilers
1955's "Female Jungle" was an early on release from American International Pictures, when it was notwithstanding chosen American Releasing Corporation, perhaps a vanity project for thespian Bert Kaiser, who not only plays a major role, just also co-wrote and produced (his just feature motion-picture show, period). Kickoff time director Bruno Ve Sota, subsequently responsible for 1955'southward "Dementia," 1958's "The Encephalon Eaters," and 1962's "Invasion of the Star Creatures," was a busy character actor in low budget films (particularly Roger Corman or Jerry Warren), and frequent villain in Television Westerns. Immeasurably aided by the cinematography of Universal ace Elwood 'Woody' Bredell, his best known titles including "Blackness Friday," "The Mummy's Paw," "Dark Streets of Cairo," "The Invisible Woman," "Human Made Monster," "Horror Isle," "Hold That Ghost," "The Strange Instance of Physician Rx," "Mystery of Marie Roget," "The Ghost of Frankenstein," "Sherlock Holmes and the Vocalisation of Terror," and "Phantom Lady." The picture looks very good, the setup taking place almost in real time, only over an hr, starting off with the strangling murder of a pretty young blonde (not Jayne Mansfield, just Eve Brent, also making her film debut). She turns out to be a famous starlet, whose rise to the top was aided by news columnist Claude Almstead (John Carradine), who, similar Clifton Webb'south Waldo Lydecker in "Laura," remained confident that she'd always return to him whenever she strayed. There'south a starving creative person, Alex Voe (producer Bert Kaiser), who discovers Almstead at his apartment door at 2AM, curiously enervating a sketch performed; his non and so true-blue wife Peggy (Kathleen Crowley) has no trouble accompanying the older man back to his place for a nightcap and moonlight swim. Ultimately, the film stubbornly focuses on its least interesting character, boozing cop Jack Stevens (Lawrence Tierney), barely recovered from his alcoholic coma, conducting an investigation on the fly that never really picks up steam. Jayne Mansfield is admittedly stunning in her motion-picture show debut, capably treatment her supporting role as Candy Price, alternately conveying on with Voe and Stevens, all kisses with each man she comes across; too bad she too gets bumped off. Pocket-size parts are well played by director Ve Sota, James Kodl equally the saloon possessor, and especially Davis Roberts, then expert in TV comedies like SANFORD AND SON, a very sober and believable operation as the janitor, usually a office played strictly for comic relief. Information technology'south not surprising to find John Carradine in such impoverished circumstances, and it's happily one of his meatiest roles of the 50s; bespectacled, dapper, and clean shaven, either a red herring or a killer, seemingly with understandable designs on another man's cute wife. The denouement is a lengthy ane, and in his capable hands, ultimately satisfying (the moving picture would have been nothing without his presence). The pacing slowed by the dialogue-heavy script, information technology'southward downbeat but surprisingly expert given the piffling known actors involved.
4 out of 4 constitute this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
OK film noir
gnb 7 October 2005
I imagine the sole reason for most people to want to see this movie is for the screen debut of 50s cinema sex activity goddess Jayne Mansfield. Withal, the pic itself stands up reasonably well afterwards fifty years.
The plot, as you are probably already enlightened, concerns the hunt for the killer of a Hollywood actress, murdered after she leaves a bar. An off-duty cop is in the frame equally the killer and sets out to track downward the real culprit.
This movie was obviously done on the inexpensive but has a gritty edge to it and more than enough action and suspense to make full its meagre running time. Shot entirely at night the picture show has an oppressive feel and has good performances from all concerned. Jayne Mansfield, in her moving picture debut, is very impressive as a slutty wide and performs well without her trademark squeal. Although apparently very bonny she isn't at all glamorous hither and acts very well. For anyone in doubt of her abilities so Female person Jungle proves that she definitely had something.
Cheap, brusque and in the long term, forgettable, this is still an entertaining way to spend an hour. Don't interruption your neck to see information technology only if the opportunity arises, don't pass it by.
x out of 11 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Mansfield a subtle surprise in picture show debut!
Warning: Spoilers
Like countless young actors today, in 1954 a 21-year old named Jayne Mansfield made her professional motion-picture show debut in an ultra low-budget indie. To be sure, Mansfield remains the primary reason for taking a serious wait at FEMALE JUNGLE today -- as it showcases a yet-unformed actress with obvious dazzler and a naturalistic quality and elementary delivery that -- in the bulk of her film work mail-the Marilyn Monroe-caricature she gleefully played in 1957's Will SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? -- the lady, sadly, never truly regained.
Shot in ten days under the working title HANGOVER, this 70-minute B&W moving picture was a labor of love (and ego?) for its writer/producer/star Burt Kaiser. Plotted as a noir-ish little caper involving the murder of a glamorous film starlet -- mysteriously strangled in the street outside a dive bar in downtown LA -- keeps the lives of three men in an all-dark turmoil. Under Bruno Ve Sota's manlike management, these include actor Lawrence Tierney being pensively murky as the blackout-drunken, off-duty cop; B-horror pic king John Carradine distinguishing the film with his usual picking-upwardly-a-paycheck performance, while sprinkling in a flavor of sophisticated menace; and Kaiser equally a brooding hard- luck street artist, looking similar an un-shaven Johnny Depp doing an imitation of Marlon Brando. Playing Kaiser'due south anything-for-the-guy wife is Kathleen Crowley, whose coolly contained beauty reminded me a another '50s brunette, Jean Peters. Add to the mix a phone call-girl named "Candy Price," and you've got a movie "Introducing Jayne Mansfield."
With its clunky dialogue and choppy narrative, present, FEMALE JUNGLE plays like of a second-rate episode of Television receiver's HOMICIDE. Still, it's an energetic effort from all involved, and the acting is pretty damn good. Product values, especially the pic's lighting and editing, are haphazard, though the jazzy soundtrack keeps the melodrama churning in a fun mid-50s manner.
As for Mansfield, like I said, it's an impressive debut. Honestly. She'southward simply got three substantial scenes. In keeping with these kinds of noir-yarns, the guys accept most of the screen time. Still, Mansfield makes the about of hers, including a serious smooch session with the sexy Kaiser. In fact, their longest scene has a back & forth that goes something like this: line of dialogue. KISS. line. Buss. line. KISS. Buss. little line. Kiss, etc. Long, moisture & sloppy, Jayne & Burt go for it! And with the guy'south dark, edgy handsomeness, well... it probably makes for the most erotic scene in all of Mansfield'south movies. Oddly, for an actress who fabricated her proper name as a "Sexual practice Symbol," Mansfield has surprisingly few love-making scenes on her resume. Female person JUNGLE is one of the few. And it's a hot one.
Finally, although she would come up to typify the bouncy dumb blonde persona onward from '56'south THE GIRL CAN'T HELP It and the aforementioned ROCK HUNTER, I detect Mansfield'southward earlier work here (not to mention her subtle performance in Paul Wendkos's under-rated '55 noir THE Burglar) has an organic honesty that would become squashed in the bulk of her later piece of work. Don't get me wrong, I dig the daffy all the same mannered loftier-pitched squeals, goo-goo popping eyes and bosom-thrusting exhibitionism that Jayne Mansfield would become famous for, but... did they mask her true abilities? FEMALE JUNGLE makes it credible: The extra had more to offer than met the eye.
7 out of 7 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Laurence Tierney Says "No more crude stuff!"
An actress who climbed into the bed of every man who could help her finally becomes a star..... and is promptly murdered. The police force investigate, but disgraced sergeant Laurence Tierney wants in on the example.
Information technology's a solid noir from American International, just earlier they went entirely to cheap movies made for teen-agers. Information technology'due south not like they spent a lot of coin on this ane: an unknown manager, a cinematographer who spent most of his career on Poverty Row, fading actors like Tierney and John Carradine, and Jayne Mansfield in her moving-picture show debut -- she got paid $150 for her part, so went back to selling popcorn at a movie theater. Nevertheless similar all practiced noirs, it'due south very atmospheric, and the ambience of a bar after closing, where the bar homo and the janitor want to go home home is merely correct.
2 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
GRIND-House Celebrity WITH LAWRENCE TIERNEY, JOHN CARRADINE, AND JAYNE MANSFIELD
A Surprise, Grungy Watch Courtesy of the Iconic Cast of Hollywood B-Movie Legends.
Carradine Surprises the Most.
Well-nigh Unrecognizable as a "Corking" Newspaper Columnist, ala Waldo Lydecker.
Only that Uncanny Vox is Forever Recognizable.
Tierney gives a Solid and Unwavering Turn every bit a Dipsomaniac Cop Trying to Go Off the Alcohol Carriage and Back Riding the Constabulary Wagon.
Jayne Mansfield, in Her First Picture, makes a what volition Become Type She would Hug and Buss for the Curt Time Allowed in Life and in this Film.
The Film is Held-Back from Grind-House Greatness because of one of the About Irritating Bar-Tenders in the History of Movies. He Intrudes Incessantly.
Jack Hill and Bruno VeSota, two "Names" Associated with Bulldoze-In and Exploitation Flicks Add some "Spice" to a Flick that Offers Fun and Sleaze on a Level that All Films on this Budget should Aspire.
Information technology's a Murder Mystery, that Signals a Belatedly Film-Noir with its Nighttime Shoots and Quirky Characters.
Prostitutes, Moving-picture show-Stars, Cops, and Struggling Artists are Noir Fodder that'southward Ripe for the Exploiting and Exploit they do.
For Your Cheap Viewing Pleasure, this one Delivers.
two out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Undeniable brilliance oozes out of 50.A.'south Poverty Row
I night outside a seedy LA bar, a sexy blonde Hollywood starlet is strangled to death past an unseen, shadowy effigy. Naturally the cops are baffled, and i cop in particular is having the queasy sensation that he himself might be the killer. That cop has expert reason to suspect himself because he's played by Lawrence Tierney--and Detective Tierney spent that very evening in that very bar drinking himself into Blackout Land (an uncanny nod to the detail problem that sent the actor tumbling downwards to poverty row). Afterwards being summarily dressed downwards for his repeated drunkenness, Tierney is then inexplicably asked to lend his questionable expertise to solving the murder.
What then begins is a bizarrely claustrophobic nightmare chase to the end of the line, offering up a host of potential other suspects. Could information technology have been the sinister Hollywood gossip columnist (John Carradine) who helped brand the starlet'due south career and was then casually dumped by her? How almost the oddball caricature creative person (Burt Kaiser) who had recently drawn the starlet'southward likeness and was one of the concluding people to see her live? And what about the caricaturist's wife who simply happens to work at the bar? Let's not forget about Tierney's drunken cop who staggers his manner through this nocturnal labyrinth with all the confidence of a man staring down at the bottom of an empty bottle. And how does Processed, the gorgeously voluptuous call girl (Jayne Mansfield in her screen debut) who's been sexually involved with both the artist and the cop figure into all of this? Perhaps it's best to non to be overly concerned with the storyline, which is deliriously beneath pulp trash, and relish the demented visual poetry of cinematographer Elwood "Woody" Bredell, himself no stranger to the dark confines of the noir universe, with 1940s classics similar PHANTOM LADY, THE KILLERS, SMOOTH As SILK, and THE UNSUSPECTED lurking on his resume. (Bredell was 70 when he shot FEMALE JUNGLE, which would be his final feature motion picture. He died in 1976 at age 91.) And this is precisely why FEMALE JUNGLE is such an important film, for it relentlessly discards any apply for logic in favor of the inhabitation of its own deranged nightmare world. Bredell invests the film with such strikingly abstruse imagery that it's impossible to attribute its surreal await and experience to the accidental skillful fortune of its most non-existent budget--as many of the film'southward detractors take done. Rather, it is a pure distillation of the totality of the noir ethos and much more resonant with the thrill of decease and doom than any other 1950s film outside the realm of Nicholas Ray.
Female JUNGLE was the first film directed by Bruno Ve Sota. And despite having directed just two others (THE BRAIN EATERS (58) and INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES (62)) his career was adequately deep as an role player, appearing in such disreputable (and legendary) films equally DEMENTIA (55, aka DAUGHTER OF HORROR, which he too co-produced and allegedly co-directed), a bunch of classic 50s Roger Corman films, namely THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, ROCK ALL NIGHT, State of war OF THE SATELLITES, BUCKET OF BLOOD, THE WASP Adult female and Set on OF THE GIANT LEECHES also every bit the Arch Hall, Jr. teen trasher THE CHOPPERS (61; Leigh Jason), and the tres obscure beatnik noir THE Cat Infiltrator (61; William Witney).
Shot in 1955, Female JUNGLE was picked upwardly for distribution past Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson's fledgling American International Pictures (so briefly known equally ARC) and released in early 1956 as the second half of a double bill, below a Roger Corman western THE OKLAHOMA Adult female. Ve Sota, oddly enough, has a small role in that movie, as well.
But it is Female person JUNGLE, an imaginatively ambitious and unapologetically naked excursion to the darkest regions of film noir, that we will recall Bruno Ve Sota for—and deservedly so.
This highly recommended film is non available on a United states DVD (a UK one does be, though). It came out on a VHS tape from RCA / Columbia in the early 90s and turns up on eBay every now and then. Jump on information technology when it does.
4 out of 4 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Where was the tribe of Amazon women ?
Fifty-fifty at 73 minutes this flick began to elevate, which is a shame because as B-movies get it had quite a lot of promise. The 1950'south were improve known for the sometimes laughable sci-fi offerings - information technology was frequently but the inexpensive special-effects which caused derision though and the films had lots of good ideas and storylines. The film noir rip-offs from the same period didn't rely on furnishings and most are worth watching - they are certainly amend than the direct-to-video junk churned out in the 90'due south.
'Female Jungle' begins with the murder of a glamourous blonde actress exterior a bar. Having immediately grabbed our interest the narrative steadily falters and ultimately the good piece of work is undone by a confused plot and characters who elicit little interest.
Lawrence Tierney plays the central character, a drunken cop who may be involved in the crime, only he only serves as a ho-hum vehicle effectually which the minor, but more than interesting, characters tin can operate. These are primarily John Carradine every bit the suave simply sleazy amanuensis of the murdered actress and Jayne Mansfield who plays Processed Price, the mistress of a down-on-his-luck artist who knew the victim ( the artist is played past ane Burt Kaiser who besides wrote and produced the film, but seems to have washed nothing else at all - wonder what happened to him ).
The action seems to take identify over 1 night - there are certainly no daylight scenes - but at that place is a disjointed feel to proceedings and I kept getting lost towards the end as to what was exactly happening.
If you accept away the bully championship, the opening v minutes and Jayne Mansfield then at that place is not much here. B-Movies don't need a peachy deal though and these 3 elements brand the motion-picture show but about worth communicable.
8 out of xi found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
The Caricature
Warning: Spoilers
***SPOILERS*** After a night of drinking and partying extra Monica Madison,Eve Brent, while leaving the Tin can-Tin can nightclub is attacked and strangled equally her diamond brooch is stolen past her assailant. Coming or staggering out of the order to check out things is police Sgt.Stevens, Lawrence Tierney, who's and then smashed that he doesn't know what world he's on. With Sgt. Stevens's boss Capt. Kroger, Jack Colina, spotting him he lets Stevens take in in beingness drunk on the job fifty-fifty though he'due south actually off-duty. Ther's as well the suspicion by Capt. Kruger that Stevens's in being totally out of it likewise as being at the scene of the crime may well be Miss. Madison's murderer! The movie takes a hard right turn when all of a sudden out of nowhere this weirdo Claude Almstead, John Carradine,shows upward at the Voe's Alex & Peggy, Burt Kaiser & Kathleen Crowley, flat in the dead of dark-200:AM-to have Alex a professional person cartoonist sketch a extravaganza of himself!
Y'all would retrieve that with a stranger showing up at his door in the middle of the night after a murder was committed simply blocks away Alex would be a bit suspicious and throw the guy out just he doesn't! Not merely does he invite Almstead into the flat just has his wife Peggy, who's barley awake, to boil up a cup of coffee for him? Eevn crazier is that Alex shortly leaves the apartment for a hot date leaving the creepy looking Almstead all alone with his wife Peggy!
***SPOILERS**** It soon turns out that with Sgt. Stevens doing the legwork that there'due south a link to Monica Madison's murder that connects to both Almstead and Alex who both turned out to be her lovers! And that link had to practise with a drawing or caricature that Alex did of her also as Almstead beingness at the Can-Tin nightclub just hours earlier she was murdered! What can actually be called a 100% film noir style movie with it being filmed in nearly full darkness, to save on budget costs, without a single ray of sunlight in it. The motion-picture show "Female Jungle" also has the stardom of being buxom blond Jane-Man O Homo-Mansfield's film debut as Candy Toll besides as having it's star Kathleen Crowley raped, for real not in the movie,that held up production for some iii days!
2 out of 2 institute this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
enjoyed it
I'grand non into sometime flicks from the 50's and even the sixty'southward just still, I have to buy some to complete my drove. But information technology came articulate after this i, I don't like horrors from that era but crime stories I practise like. The reason is very simple, they don't use cheap effects. But however, they have to give you a special reason to watch them. This one still stands later on those years due the perfect editing, what I mean is that they use unmarried camera to brand those flicks, so when you see a cut it's been taken from another take. Generally faults are visible in expression of faces or drinks that are for instance empty and of a sudden they're full once more. Another reason to watch it is to meet sex symbol Jayne Mansfield in her screen debut. Already in some sexy outfit and as seducer. A strange life she had dying at age 34. All acting is well done, of course no nudity in information technology but the use of claret dripping from ane'due south hand is impressive for that era. When one is killed due gunshots, the shut upwardly and the blood running was as well well done. Information technology's non a master piece only it surely is withal enjoyable.
iv out of 7 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
More than Bad Than Good
Even allowing for the fact that information technology was a low upkeep, quickly made picture (like many motion picture noirs were), this pic for me was more bad than proficient. Get-go the bad, the film suffers from some stilted interim by the supporting players and and so-then dialog. The motion picture even manages a couple of moments of unintentional humor. It is about a murder that takes identify outside a bar where an off duty cop is drinking heavily. The cop is played hither by Lawrence Tierney (who looks more than like his younger brother, Scott Brady, than he has in any other role of his I've seen). The cops on duty browbeat Tierney into helping out with the investigation. I did not sympathise why they expected Tierney'due south grapheme to assist, he was off duty after all. Now for the good, afterward a few false leads and dead ends, the killer is revealed. I must acknowledge, the killer's identity was unexpected. I was fooled. The leading performers here are competent merely the one person that really stands out, literally, is a young temptress played by Jayne Mansfield. It is piece of cake to see why she ended upward with a Hollywood career playing Marilyn Monroe type parts. This moving picture was released every bit the second one-half of a double feature. That is where it belongs. The western it was released with, Oklahoma Woman, is a much meliorate film.
7 out of 11 constitute this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
not really
John Carradine and Lawrence Tierney star in "Female person Jungle" from 1955 which features Jayne Mansfield.
I will say upfront that if you got annihilation out of this film, I'm happy for you. And I guess you're smarter than I am. I thought it was awful.
In the get-go, a glamorous blonde moving picture star is murdered. She was apparently in the Can Can Lodge which is just beyond the street. The exterior of this identify looks like something like a House of Horrors, even so supposedly, she went there.
The police make it; the 2 waitresses are questioned and finally get to go domicile. At that place is an off-duty cop in that location (Tierney) who was as well drunk to think much who is also at the club.
I of the waitresses, Peggy, is married to an artist named Alex Voe, who does caricatures. It'due south ii am and a man named Almstead (Carradine) shows upward and says he wants his extravaganza washed. Alex winds up having a fight with Peggy and leaves his wife alone with this full stranger. At 2 a.chiliad.
Now, I realize people put things down to "it was a different time," but I lived in that time, and I don't remember it existence normal for a strange human to show up at 2 a.grand. and then left alone with your wife.
Peggy, supposedly exhausted from her job, seems to rally when Almstead invites her out for a drink. She winds upwardly at his flat. Spotting the swimming pool, she says she'd similar to accept a swim. Again, it wasn't really the practice to go to a stranger's domicile for a potable and a swimming session back so.
Tierney then arrives at the other waitresses' apartment - information technology'due south now probably 3 a.1000. No trouble. He comes into her bedroom (her husband's comatose) and questions her. One gets the impression that he's afraid he might accept killed the actress and just tin can't call up.
Jayne Mansfield is having an affair with Alex Voe. As information technology turns out, she gets effectually.
I won't carp with the residual of the plot. The movie was something like one-ane/2 and felt as long as Gone with the Wind.
I'm non a fan of Lawrence Tierney. Every fourth dimension I run across him, I desire to pull that hairpiece off. With the exception of John Carradine, the acting ranged from awful to horrifying.
I see hither at that place's talk of the wonderful photography. I inverse the effulgence on my ipad twice so I could see something. I even so couldn't.
Sorry simply I am a pic noir fanatic, and I neglect to see annihilation worthwhile in this.
ii out of 4 establish this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Non worth your time unless y'all want to see every movie in which Jayne Mansfield appeared.
The film begins with an extra being strangled outside a bar. Inside at the time is a drunkard cop who is off duty (Tierney). Also within are a diversity of odd characters including a sketch artist, a weirdo (John Carradine) and a blonde matriarch (Jayne Mansfield).
"Female Jungle" is a poor murder mystery. Despite starring Lawrence Tierney, who was fantastic in 1950s moving-picture show noir, this film suffers from a bad script, some poor acting and lousy management. What makes it worse, after the murderer is discovered and stopped, the film goes on for another ten minutes or so in order to explain what has happened and why!! To make things worse, information technology's non particularly interesting or engaging and is a bit of a disappointment....even for a cheapo criminal offense motion picture.
2 out of ten plant this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Wild
Warning: Spoilers
Lawrence Tierney plays Detective Sergeant Jack Stevens, a lawman so drunk that he doesn't even remember killing a famous film star. Or maybe he didn't. Life is imitating art here, as Tierney was a complete maniac on the order of a Kinski.
Quentin Tarantino referred to him as "a complete lunatic" and an opportunity to play Elaine's father on Seinfeld ended with him stealing a pocketknife from the set and threatening the life of the prove'south creator and star. These are small-scale anecdotes in a life filled with brawls, battles with the police force and brilliant interim.
For case, in June of 1975, Tierney was questioned by the NYPD in connectedness with the apparent suicide of a 24-year-old adult female who had jumped from her high-ascent window. He told the police, "I had but gotten at that place, and she just went out the window." This would be foreign enough, but Tierney besides played a grapheme in the pic The Hoodlum who is suspected of driving a woman into jumping to her expiry.
Jayne Mansfield shows up as Candy Price, an artist'south mistress, and John Carradine plays a tabloid reporter. Kathleen Crowley was the lead; she showed up late one day and claimed that she had been raped, which meant that many of her shots are a double and Mansfield - who was paid $150 for the office and went dorsum to selling popcorn at a film theater afterwards this - had her part increased.
This noir was directed by character actor Bruno VeSota, who besides made The Brain Eaters and Invasion of the Star Creatures.
1 out of ii found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Murdered starlet, boozer cop doubtable and Jane Mansfield
Moving-picture show noir with a cursory part for Jane Mansfield.
A starlet is murdered in front of a club containing a drunk off-duty police force officer who blacked out and can't account for a clamper of time. The police officeholder, concerned that he might exist the murderer rushes to fill in his missing fourth dimension and notice out who committed the murder...which leads dorsum to a wealthy admirer and a caricature artist.
The story does come together but is not very in depth.
Classic motion picture noir cinematography, Jane Mansfield and that'due south about it.
Possibly slightly noteworthy, but a watch and delete for me.
1 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Feral 50'due south murder mystery delivers the greasy appurtenances
This movie is smashing. Starlet gets snuffed in the first two minutes. Alcoholic cop Lawrence Tierney was at the scene of the crime only was too boozed-up to remember what happened. He tries to piece information technology all together but anybody around him is a weirdo, liar, or a scuzzball. With Jayne Mansfield and John Carradine. Everybody'south younger than I've always seen them earlier. It'south dark and fast and fell. Killer grungy noir.
2 out of 2 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Prissy Bandage just a Very Weak Screenplay
Female person Jungle (1955)
** (out of 4)
Det. Jack Stevens (Lawrence Tierney) gets chewed out by his dominate subsequently he'south in a bar expressionless drunkard while a famous actress is outside being murdered. Stevens is and then drunk and after a witness sees him leaving the bar with a blonde, he begins to feel that peradventure he's the murderer. He starts an investigation to try and see what actually happened and soon we become more suspects including the woman's press agent (John Carradine), a man (Burt Kaiser) who did her portrait and his married woman (Kathleen Crowley). This "B" noir has a terrific cast that do what they can with a lousy screenplay just in the stop there'south non enough anyone could accept done to recover from the very weak story. I call up any mystery or noir picture is going to be in deep trouble whenever it tin can't even brand the viewer interested in any of the events going on and that'due south exactly what Female JUNGLE does. There wasn't a unmarried frame where I was interested in who the killer was. I didn't care if it turned out to be Tierney, Carradine or anyone else who happens across the screen. The screenplay makes very little sense and frequently times it appears none of the pieces really add upwardly until the end when we get the majority of the characters in a single room where we're told what happened. Yous know a film is in trouble when actors are given long scripts to read at i time just to make sense of everything. Another problem is that manager VeSota doesn't actually know how to build up whatsoever drama or make annihilation energetic. The motion picture'southward pacing is an event considering everything seems to happen at a very slow pace and fifty-fifty worse is the fact that in that location's just non any life to annihilation you're seeing. VeSota will ever be remembered for his various appearances in Roger Corman films only his director's output didn't really add together up to much as he followed this moving picture with THE BRAIN EATERS and INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES. Tierney does what he can with the pb role just that's not too much as his character is pretty much the worst written. Some might be surprised to encounter him playing a level-headed guy but he does what he can. I thought both Kaiser and Crowley were decent in their parts only Carradine has fun playing one grapheme who seems to accept at least three dissimilar personalities. The majority of the film points the finger at Carradine and depending on what the script is trying to do at the time volition depend on what type of performance the actor gives. Jayne Mansfield fabricated her movie debut here playing a sexy blonde with a few secrets. The operation isn't that proficient but she was certainly striking to look at.
i out of v found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
It stinks!!! awful
Starts out okay but human it drags. The Jayne Mansfield nympho stiff is quickly annoying. It is hard to see where information technology is going but when y'all find out, information technology is sooooo stupid. The stuff with the married woman and John Carradine is labored. The "one-act" with the bartender is sooo annoying. For those of yous who dear garbage, this is non for you.
0 out of 1 found this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Tierney is a Proficient GUY?
At present style.
This is a keen movie. The dialog is abrupt, various, beckoning, and funny. OMG is it fun to watch.
Cinematography is smashing
Carradine, Mansfield, Tierney in a low budget independent psych thriller.
The diverse unusual comedic dialog is excellent - comparable to 'The Thing from Some other Planet", "Kiss of Fire", etc - other 1950's noir.
Watch it. Then watch Tierney's magnificent role in "Hoodlum"
0 out of 0 institute this helpful. Was this review helpful? Sign in to vote.
Permalink
Source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0049204/reviews
0 Response to "Jungle Girl Raped and Snuffed"
Post a Comment