Chirphymium It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

WillSushyMedia This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

InformationRap This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

Haven Kaycee It is encouraging that the film ends so strongly.Otherwise, it wouldn't have been a particularly memorable film

MartinHafer The film begins with an actress being strangled outside a bar. Inside at the time is a drunk cop who is off duty (Tierney). Also inside are a variety of odd characters including a sketch artist, a weirdo (John Carradine) and a blonde dame (Jayne Mansfield)."Female Jungle" is a poor murder mystery. Despite starring Lawrence Tierney, who was fantastic in 1950s film noir, this film suffers from a bad script, some poor acting and lousy direction. 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, it's not particularly interesting or engaging and is a bit of a disappointment....even for a cheapo crime film.

Dewey1960 One night outside a seedy LA bar, a sexy blonde Hollywood starlet is strangled to death by an unseen, shadowy figure. Naturally the cops are baffled, and one cop in particular is having the queasy sensation that he himself might be the killer. That cop has good 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 particular problem that sent the actor tumbling down to poverty row). After being summarily dressed down 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 it have been the sinister Hollywood gossip columnist (John Carradine) who helped make the starlet's career and was then casually dumped by her? How about the oddball caricature artist (Burt Kaiser) who had recently drawn the starlet's likeness and was one of the last people to see her alive? And what about the caricaturist's wife who just happens to work at the bar? Let's not forget about Tierney's drunken cop who staggers his way through this nocturnal labyrinth with all the conviction of a man staring down at the bottom of an empty bottle. And how does Candy, 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 not 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 like 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 film. He died in 1976 at age 91.) And this is precisely why FEMALE JUNGLE is such an important film, for it relentlessly discards any use for logic in favor of the inhabitation of its own deranged nightmare world. Bredell invests the film with such strikingly abstract imagery that it's impossible to attribute its surreal look and feel to the accidental good fortune of its nearly non-existent budget--as many of the film's detractors have done. Rather, it is a pure distillation of the totality of the noir ethos and much more resonant with the thrill of death 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 only two others (THE BRAIN EATERS (58) and INVASION OF THE STAR CREATURES (62)) his career was fairly deep as an actor, appearing in such disreputable (and legendary) films as DEMENTIA (55, aka DAUGHTER OF HORROR, which he also co-produced and allegedly co-directed), a bunch of classic 50s Roger Corman films, namely THE FAST AND THE FURIOUS, ROCK ALL NIGHT, WAR OF THE SATELLITES, BUCKET OF BLOOD, THE WASP WOMAN and ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES as well as the Arch Hall, Jr. teen trasher THE CHOPPERS (61; Leigh Jason), and the tres obscure beatnik noir THE CAT BURGLAR (61; William Witney).Shot in 1955, FEMALE JUNGLE was picked up for distribution by Sam Arkoff and James Nicholson's fledgling American International Pictures (then briefly known as ARC) and released in early 1956 as the second half of a double bill, beneath a Roger Corman western THE OKLAHOMA WOMAN. Ve Sota, oddly enough, has a small role in that film, too.But it is FEMALE JUNGLE, an imaginatively ambitious and unapologetically naked excursion to the darkest regions of film noir, that we will remember Bruno Ve Sota for—and deservedly so.This highly recommended film is not available on a US DVD (a UK one does exist, 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 it when it does.

panteliad Like countless young actors today, in 1954 a 21-year old named Jayne Mansfield made her professional motion picture debut in an ultra low-budget indie. To be sure, Mansfield remains the primary reason for taking a serious look at FEMALE JUNGLE today -- as it showcases a yet-unformed actress with obvious beauty and a naturalistic quality and simple commitment that -- in the bulk of her film work post-the Marilyn Monroe-caricature she gleefully played in 1957's WILL SUCCESS SPOIL ROCK HUNTER? -- the lady, sadly, never truly regained.Shot in 10 days under the working title HANGOVER, this 70-minute B&W movie 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 movie starlet -- mysteriously strangled in the street outside a dive bar in downtown LA -- keeps the lives of three men in an all-night turmoil. Under Bruno Ve Sota's macho direction, these include actor Lawrence Tierney being pensively murky as the blackout-drunken, off-duty cop; B-horror movie king John Carradine distinguishing the film with his usual picking-up-a-paycheck performance, while sprinkling in a flavor of sophisticated menace; and Kaiser as a brooding hard- luck street artist, looking like an un-shaven Johnny Depp doing an imitation of Marlon Brando. Playing Kaiser's 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 call-girl named "Candy Price," and you've got a movie "Introducing Jayne Mansfield."With its clunky dialogue and choppy narrative, nowadays, FEMALE JUNGLE plays like of a second-rate episode of TV's HOMICIDE. Still, it's an energetic effort from all involved, and the acting is pretty damn good. Production values, especially the film's lighting and editing, are haphazard, though the jazzy soundtrack keeps the melodrama churning in a fun mid-50s way.As for Mansfield, like I said, it's an impressive debut. Honestly. She's only got three substantial scenes. In keeping with these kinds of noir-yarns, the guys take most of the screen time. Still, Mansfield makes the most 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. KISS. line. KISS. KISS. little line. KISS, etc. Long, wet & sloppy, Jayne & Burt go for it! And with the guy's dark, edgy handsomeness, well... it probably makes for the most erotic scene in all of Mansfield's movies. Oddly, for an actress who made her name as a "Sex Symbol," Mansfield has surprisingly few love-making scenes on her resume. FEMALE JUNGLE is one of the few. And it's a hot one.Finally, although she would come to typify the bouncy dumb blonde persona onward from '56's THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT and the aforementioned ROCK HUNTER, I find Mansfield's 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 get squashed in the bulk of her later work. Don't get me wrong, I dig the daffy yet mannered high-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 apparent: The actress had more to offer than met the eye.

Wilbur-10 Even at 73 minutes this film began to drag, which is a shame because as B-movies go it had quite a lot of promise. The 1950's were better known for the sometimes laughable sci-fi offerings - it was often only the cheap 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 effects and most are worth watching - they are certainly better than the straight-to-video junk churned out in the 90's.'Female Jungle' begins with the murder of a glamourous blonde actress outside a bar. Having immediately grabbed our interest the narrative steadily falters and ultimately the good 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, but he only serves as a dull vehicle around which the minor, but more interesting, characters can operate. These are primarily John Carradine as the suave but sleazy agent of the murdered actress and Jayne Mansfield who plays Candy Price, the mistress of a down-on-his-luck artist who knew the victim ( the artist is played by one Burt Kaiser who also wrote and produced the film, but seems to have done nothing else at all - wonder what happened to him ).The action seems to take place over one night - there are certainly no daylight scenes - but there is a disjointed feel to proceedings and I kept getting lost towards the end as to what was exactly happening. If you take away the great title, the opening 5 minutes and Jayne Mansfield then there is not much here. B-Movies don't need a great deal though and these 3 elements make the film just about worth catching.