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South
America, 1901: Joanna (Eleanor Parker), a poised
and elegant New Orleans beauty, travels to a remote
outpost in the Amazonian jungle to join her husband.
Married by proxy, the bride and groom have never
met in the flesh. She is to be the mistress of
Leiningen Plantation, 200,000 sprawling acres
of cocoa fields carved from the heart of the wilderness
by the sweat and iron will of its master. Apprehension
turns to sadness when she finally comes face to
face with the powerful man she's wed... He's rich
and ruggedly handsome, yes
but also a colossal jerk. Christopher Leiningen
(Charlton Heston) has spent his entire adult life
building an empire in the jungle. He agreed to
the proxy nuptials
arranged by his brother in the States
so that he could start a family and produce an
heir, to secure his holdings and extend them into
the future. One look at the beautiful Joanna and
you'd think he'd be doing handsprings at his incredible
good fortune, but no. "I'm not that lucky," he
coldly tells her. "There must be something wrong
with you." A letter from his brother reveals that
she was married once before. She's a widow. In
Leiningen's eyes this immediately disqualifies
her as a mate. He wanted, and expected, a virgin.
("I won't have another man's leavings.") So their
marriage is more or less annulled on his word
before it can be consummated. He wants her to
go back to New Orleans but Joanna has to remain
at the plantation for another month, until the
next supply boat comes. During this time Leiningen
is callous and rude to her, making Jane Eyre's
brusque and brooding Mr. Rochester seem like a
gregarious charmer in comparison.
Of course
Joanna isn't one to sit idly by awaiting dismissal.
Attracted to this Macho Terriblis, she
cautiously probes for chinks in his armor of stern
reserve and pompous mien. She gets Leiningen
to reveal that he has absolutely no experience
with women he's never had the time. He's a virgin,
and secretly afraid of a woman who has "known
men." Their turbulent relationship is just
beginning to thaw when a visiting colonial official
(William Conrad) brings dire news: the Marabunta
are coming. A vast army of billions of soldier
ants is on the march, stripping everything living
they encounter to the bone, including people and
animals. Leiningen's plantation lies directly
in the ants' path. The commissioner urges immediate
evacuation. ("You're up against a monster
20 miles long and 2 miles wide... 40 square miles
of agonizing death! You can't stop it!")
But Leiningen is determined to save what he's
built or die in the attempt. And to his surprise,
his city-bred mail order bride wants to stay with
him regardless of the mounting danger.
This was the follow-up
film to the 1953 sci-fi smash War
of the Worlds by producer George Pal (When
Worlds Collide) and director Byron Haskin
(Conquest of Space).
Perhaps they just wanted to bring things back
down to earth, requiring a smaller budget and
far fewer special effects. Based on a popular
1940s radio play (which ironically starred William
Conrad as Leiningen), the radio version didn't
have any female characters in it just Man versus
Nature. The Naked Jungle
compacts these adventure elements into the final
half-hour. Until then it's purely the stuff of
very old-fashioned Harlequin romance novels,
a corny, turgid melodrama for the age when mainstream
filmmakers had to dance delicately around the
issue of sex. (The word "virgin", for example,
couldn't be used.) Yet earnest performances by
Heston and Parker make it work. The pair even
manages to throw off a few sparks despite these
constraints, as during the scene (reportedly improvised
by the actors) in which a drunken, frustrated
Leiningen douses Joanna in perfume and tries to
ravish her. (Her sodden peignoir ample bosom
heaving is as risquι as the movie gets.)
Though the leads are quite good, the problem remains
that this "will they or won't they?"
soap opera consumes two-thirds of the picture.
The threat of the encroaching ant horde almost
seems tacked on as an afterthought; it's barely
even mentioned in the first hour. Now bodice-ripping
romance is all fine and good, but I think a film
billed as an adventure story shouldn't
be so stingy with action and excitement. And we
only get to see one person actually being killed
by the ants!
Coming from Pal, you can be
assured that the special effects though relatively
low-key in comparison to some of his other productions
are topnotch for their day. The matte paintings
and model work still hold up quite well. This
has a tendency to highlight how studio-bound the
picture is, however; there's surprisingly little
"jungle" in The
Naked Jungle, as a number of key 'outdoor'
scenes take place on interior stages. A young
Charlton Heston, early in his career and not yet
a big movie star (he's second billed here; Ben-Hur
is five years off), displays all the swaggering,
scenery-chewing verve and charisma that's a hallmark
of both his best and worst performances. It's
Eleanor Parker's turn as the cultured but equally
iron-willed Joanna that's the real strength of
the film.
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The Naked Jungle
was recently issued by Paramount as part of the
studio's "Full Screen Collection". I
don't know for sure whether the film was originally
lensed in the 1.33:1 Academy ratio but I'd bet
that was indeed the case; the framing seems right
and no relevant visual information appears to
be lost. The disc's transfer, while displaying
the grain one expects with a 50-year old film,
boasts incredibly vivid colors and not a smidgen
of discernible damage. A strong and clear mono
audio track complements
the great-looking visuals. (Oddly, the optional
English subtitles provide translations of native
'jungle-speak'.) There aren't any extras
not even a trailer
but the DVD sells cheap.
1/11/05
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