Press ad for The Beauty Jungle (1964)
The most colourful and exciting film of the year
The good people at Talking Pictures TV have found another absolute gem of a movie: The Beauty Jungle (dir. Val Guest, 1964), starring (60s and 70s stalwart) Ian Hendry as local journalist Don MacKenzie and (lovely Lancashire lass) Janette Scott as the typist-turned-beauty contestant Shirley Freeman.
Also putting in appearances are Tommy Trinder, Sid James, and a 21-year-old Maggie Nolan as just one of the mulitude of leggy-lovelies gracing the screen, so obviously a film with instant appeal for viewers like me (although it's interesting to note that promotion for the film was aimed primarily at a female audience in the belief that it was the sort of film women will want to see; the sort of picture women will want to talk about).
Essentially a moral tale - or, rather, a sexploitation movie masquerading as a moral tale - it purports to expose the sordid and corrupt world of beauty pageants. MacKenzie, acting as a manager and image consultant to Shirley, is desperate to also become her lover. Unfortunately for him, having left her home, her job, and her boyfriend and transformed from a happy young brunette into a glamorous and ambitious blonde, greedy for ever-greater fame and success, she isn't interested and spurns his advances.
Of far more interest to Shirley are playboy filmstar Rex Carrick (played by Edmund Purdom) and sauve international beauty pageant promoter Armand (played by the French actor Jean Claudio). She tries to seduce the former, only to discover he's either gay or asexual; and she (mistakenly) agrees to sleep with the latter in the (vain) hope of becoming Miss Globe (a title that goes to Miss Peru, played by a former Miss Israel, Aliza Gur).
Also putting in appearances are Tommy Trinder, Sid James, and a 21-year-old Maggie Nolan as just one of the mulitude of leggy-lovelies gracing the screen, so obviously a film with instant appeal for viewers like me (although it's interesting to note that promotion for the film was aimed primarily at a female audience in the belief that it was the sort of film women will want to see; the sort of picture women will want to talk about).
Essentially a moral tale - or, rather, a sexploitation movie masquerading as a moral tale - it purports to expose the sordid and corrupt world of beauty pageants. MacKenzie, acting as a manager and image consultant to Shirley, is desperate to also become her lover. Unfortunately for him, having left her home, her job, and her boyfriend and transformed from a happy young brunette into a glamorous and ambitious blonde, greedy for ever-greater fame and success, she isn't interested and spurns his advances.
Of far more interest to Shirley are playboy filmstar Rex Carrick (played by Edmund Purdom) and sauve international beauty pageant promoter Armand (played by the French actor Jean Claudio). She tries to seduce the former, only to discover he's either gay or asexual; and she (mistakenly) agrees to sleep with the latter in the (vain) hope of becoming Miss Globe (a title that goes to Miss Peru, played by a former Miss Israel, Aliza Gur).
Having failed to make it to the top, Shirley is reduced to working as a celebrity judge back on the local beauty contest circuit - until, that is, she sees her younger sister paraded before her (and under the management of MacKenzie). This forces her to walk away from the industry for good and presumably back into a life of obscurity and nine-to-five normality; just another victim of the beauty jungle and its brutal, primitive law (though one who was happy to be complicit so long as she was winning).
What feminist critics or members of the #MeToo generation would make of such a film heaven only knows; one imagines they'd be triggered (perhaps rightly) by the unabashed sexual objectification and abuse of young women by powerful and unscrupulous older men.
But the film has such quirky British charm - not only, as I said earlier, do Tommy Trinder and Sid James appear, but Lionel (Give Us a Clue) Blair and cheeky chappie Joe Brown also pop up on screen - that such sleazy behaviour is normalised, humanised, and made entertaining. Maybe that's the thing with vice and immorality - we find it so damn seductive (and excusable) if it's carried out by people with a twinkle in their eye!
And, what's more, I fully appreciate why girls like Shirley Freeman set out on the path to fame and riches, prepared to do whatever it takes in order to escape being little Miss No One from nowhere - for who wants to peel potatoes and scrub floors when you can drink champagne and travel the world in style?
Notes
What feminist critics or members of the #MeToo generation would make of such a film heaven only knows; one imagines they'd be triggered (perhaps rightly) by the unabashed sexual objectification and abuse of young women by powerful and unscrupulous older men.
But the film has such quirky British charm - not only, as I said earlier, do Tommy Trinder and Sid James appear, but Lionel (Give Us a Clue) Blair and cheeky chappie Joe Brown also pop up on screen - that such sleazy behaviour is normalised, humanised, and made entertaining. Maybe that's the thing with vice and immorality - we find it so damn seductive (and excusable) if it's carried out by people with a twinkle in their eye!
And, what's more, I fully appreciate why girls like Shirley Freeman set out on the path to fame and riches, prepared to do whatever it takes in order to escape being little Miss No One from nowhere - for who wants to peel potatoes and scrub floors when you can drink champagne and travel the world in style?
Notes
