Female Jungle (1955)

Director: Bruno VeSota

Starring: Lawrence Tierney, John Carradine, Jayne Mansfield, Burt Kaiser, Kathleen Crowley, James Kodl, Duane Grey

More info: IMDb

Tagline: As the night grows dark, the women turn deadly.

Plot: A blonde actress is murdered across from a bar. An off-duty cop has been getting pleasantly sloshed, but becomes worried about his innocence when he finds out he was seen leaving the establishment with a blonde, but doesn't remember. As he investigates, he interviews a columnist who was going with the actress, a caricaturist who drew the victim, the caricaturist's wife who works at the bar, and the caricaturist's lover, and slowly begins to put the pieces of the deadly puzzle together.

My rating: 6.5/10

Will I watch it again? I'm on the fence but probably not. There are too many movies to watch to come back to this one.

#31 on 42nd Street Forever Vol. 2: The Deuce (part of the TRAILER TRASH PROJECT)

This is a pretty dark noir picture with an unusually darker ending. The acting is on par with what you'd expect from a crime film of the era as is the dialogue. The story keeps you guessing until the last few minutes but for my money, it's the ending that makes this stand out above a lot of the typical detective stories of the 1950s.

THE SPOILER JUNGLE...

Once the killer is revealed and before the coppers get to him, he kills his girlfriend, Candy Price (Mansfield), by choking her to death!!! What makes this cool in my book is that it's typical to have the fuzz show up just in the nick of time. Not in this picture.

END OF SPOILERS...YARRRRRRR!

That's some badass shit for 1955. Overall this is a good flick and I recommend it. At 70 or so minutes, it's easily digestible and satisfying but not enough to keep me coming back. I'm very glad I watched it.