Sun 20 Jul 2014
Movie Review: THE NAKED JUNGLE (1954).
Posted by Steve under Action Adventure movies , Old Time Radio , Reviews[16] Comments
THE NAKED JUNGLE. Paramount Pictures, 1954. Eleanor Parker, Charlton Heston, Abraham Sofaer, William Conrad. Based on the story “Leiningen versus the Ants,” by Carl Stephenson (Esquire, December 1938); first published in Germany in 1937 as “Leiningens Kampf mit den Ameisen.” Director: Byron Haskin.
Fans and collectors of Old Time Radio shows will recognize the story this film is based on immediately. “Leiningen versus the Ants” must be among everyone’s all time Top Ten list of favorite episodes. It was produced at least four different times, on Escape 14 Jan 1948, 23 May 1948, 4 Aug 1949, and on Suspense, 29 Nov 1959. You can hear an MP3 version of the first of these here.
The radio version follows the story itself quite faithfully, that of a stubborn bull-headed plantation owner in South America who refuses to move away from his land in the face of a swarm of deadly ants two miles wide and ten miles long. The only difference is that in the radio version the District Commissioner returns to Leiningen’s compound to see whether (and how) he can make good on his promise to prevail against the deadly horde. He also helps provide half of the necessary narration.
The story can be read in twenty minutes, and it takes thirty minutes to listen to the radio show. How then is the running time of the movie some 95 minutes long? Easy. Add a preamble about an hour long, one introducing a mail-order bride to the tale, a lady from New Orleans previously unseen by Leiningen.
Charlton Heston is of course the obvious choice to play Leiningen, a fellow as stubborn and ignorant of the ways of women as he was later on in his portrayal of Captain Colt Saunders in Three Violent People (1956), which I reviewed here not too long ago.
Of course it could only happen in the movies that the mail-order bride would be as lovely as Eleanor Parker, but leave it to Charlton Heston’s character to reject her almost immediately, once he learns that she has been married once before. (He prides himself on having only new items in his house, including a piano, which of course the new Mrs. Leiningen is able to play, and quite well)
All in all, it’s sort of dull romance, and you just know that once the danger is over, the two of them will find a way to sort things out between them, if not before. In my opinion, as long as you’re asking me, the time the romantic problems take up could have been shortened considerably, thus giving us more time with the ants. (Some of us, who know full well what is coming in advance, may even be squirming in our seats in anticipation.)
The special effects are quite good, I hasten to add, and well worth the price of admission. So good, in fact, that I recognized some of the footage as being used again in an episode of the TV series MacGyver, “Trumbo’s World” (Season 1, Episode 6; 10 November 1985).
And oh yes, one other thing. William Conrad, who played Leiningen in the radio show that I hope you took (or will take) the time to listen to, played the role of the District Commissioner in The Naked Jungle.
Overall verdict: Medium well but no more.
July 20th, 2014 at 1:04 am
Heston is very good, per usual, although he tends to call his mail order bride “Madame” one too many times for my liking. After a while, it seems artificial and gratuitous
The special effects are quite good and the final sequence of Heston’s character saving the day, if not his plantation, is very well done.
July 20th, 2014 at 8:20 am
I’ve heard the radio show a time or two. I think it was done more than once. Anyway, I saw the movie when I was a kid, and I thought it was great. I fell in love with Eleanor Parker, and the ants were impressive.
July 20th, 2014 at 9:54 am
Heston’s always good, but it’s difficult to concentrate on the romance when you know that the ants are on the way. I sort of feel that the whole human interest thing was a way of making the movie look more mainstream, when in fact the reason we’re here is to watch people getting eaten alive by ants.
I had always assumed that the idea that people could really be chomped by driver ants was a myth, rather in the way that there are no verified accounts of people being eaten by pirahnas. However, I understand that it is actually possible.
Eleanor Parker was a terrific actress. I remember seeing her in several different movies, and only slowly realising that it was the same actress in each one! She was probably slightly too good to be a real star, in that the trick to being a true star is to do the same thing in slightly different ways. Rather boggling to see her CV, going right back to the early 40s, and realise that she only died a few months ago.
July 20th, 2014 at 11:10 am
There is no such thing as being too good. Stars have historically come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes, some extremely attractive, others on the short dumpy side. The unifying quality that made them actual stars was not billing or the size of part, although that is a result, is empathy. Whether hero, villain, or something else entirely, people, the audience, identified and liked them. This is pretty well a universal truth within the entertainment industry. More than technical excellence is required. Oh, and one other factor, pure and simple random good luck.
July 20th, 2014 at 12:05 pm
Well, ‘too good’ is perhaps the wrong phrase, but ‘too versatile’ perhaps? Like I said, I had seen her in a few different films and had not realised it was the same actress. One of the things that unify THE STAR is the fact that they embody something that the audience seems to want. If you look at, say, Cary Grant, the qualities that he seems to represent are charm, urbanity, and a sort of class that someone could aspire to. John Wayne was the epitome of rugged, decent, but slightly dangerous frontier spirit. Their least favourite movies tend to be the ones that depart too radically from that ideal (NONE BUT THE LONELY HEART for Grant, or THE CONQUEROR for Wayne). Parker was an excellent actress, but she wasn’t the star that someone like Audrey Hepburn was, because she wasn’t iconic the way that Hepburn was. They’re still selling images of Hepburn with that cigarette holder from BREAKFAST AT TIFFANY’S, and that’s because she was a Star.
July 20th, 2014 at 1:13 pm
To add one small comment to the discussion, on the basis of this movie, Eleanor Parker ought to have been a star, and maybe she was at the time, but Bradstreet, you’re right, compared to Audrey Hepburn, she’s all but forgotten today, and that’s too bad.
But then to go off in another direction, the back cover you see at the top of the review came from a Dell mapback, of all things. The book it itself was entitled SUSPENSE (Dell #92) and was supposed edited by Alfred Hitchcock. I have some doubts but it could have been.
In any case the map would come in handy for anyone who’s reading, listening or watching the story for the first time. Alas, I didn’t. I didn’t come across this pictorial layout of Leiningen’s plantation until after doing all three, but I have to tell you, the map is really well done.
July 20th, 2014 at 1:22 pm
This film came out, I believe, just a few years after her starring role alongside Kirk Douglas in Detective Story
July 20th, 2014 at 5:23 pm
The SUSPENSE mapback was ghost-edited by Rolla E McDonald. I understand that Hitchcock never edited any of the anthologies, nor did he write any of the introductions. I recall an interview with Peter Haining, who ghost-edited some Hitchcock books in the UK. He said that Hitch had taken him out for lunch at a posh restaurant, had a chat, and then given Haining carte blanche to do whatever he liked with the books. That was the sum total of his involvement.
July 20th, 2014 at 5:47 pm
Bradstreet
Thanks for the information about Rolla E McDonald. I was sure Hitchcock had little to do with any of the books, including this one, but it’s nice to have a name to go with the fellow who did put it together. It’s one I somehow remember from junior high school, and some of the stories were really scary then.
From http://www.isfdb.org/cgi-bin/pl.cgi?407268
Elementals • (1922) • novelette by Stephen Vincent Benét
Flood on the Goodwins • (1933) • shortstory by A. D. Divine
Leiningen Versus the Ants • (1938) • novelette by Carl Stephenson (trans. of Leiningens Kampf mit den Ameisen 1937)
The Baby in the Icebox • (1947) • shortfiction by James M. Cain
The Blue Paper • (1941) • shortfiction by Albert Payson Terhune
The House of Ecstasy • (1938) • shortstory by Ralph Milne Farley
The Liqueur Glass • (1915) • shortstory by Phyllis Bottome
The Room on the Fourth Floor • (1930) • shortstory by Ralph Straus
The Second Step • (1934) • shortstory by Margery Sharp
The Quality of Suspense • essay by Alfred Hitchcock
R. M. S. Titanic • (1934) • shortstory by Hanson W. Baldwin [as by Hanson Baldwin]
Fire in the Galley Stove • (1937) • shortstory by Capt. William Outerson
July 21st, 2014 at 9:22 pm
Parker played a variety of roles, and certainly was a star, but with Hepburn, Grant, Wayne we are talking super star which she never was. She was very good in The Woman in White being driven more than a little mad by Sidney Greenstreet and one of her early films is CRIME BY NIGHT with Jerome Cowan, Jane Wyman, and Jane Greer.
One problem is she came along when there was a surplus of good actresses and many roles she might have gotten went to established names, while she didn’t always get the big breaks. That said her fiery redhaired ‘actress’ in SCARAMOUCHE is a delight and she even gets the last laugh on Stewart Granger and Janet Leigh.
While the selling point if this film is the ants, it was an attempt to escape the sf ghetto and reach an adult audience, and frankly without the rather gothic (JANE EYRE style) romance wouldn’t have had more than half an hour of story.
Heston calling her Madame is supposed to annoy her and the audience. The film goes far beyond the story and suggests that the arrogant Heston would not have survived while the more human one at the end has a reason to survive as well as fight the ants.
If you pay attention to the story it is established early on that when it comes to civilized women Heston is a virgin. He’s virtually a Tarzan figure, completely lost in the world outside of his plantation. The long build up is designed in part to make him a man, rather than the force of nature both he and the ants represent. I’m not sure there would be much suspense in the film if the character from the first half of the film defeated the ants. He has to become human, descend from his Olympian pedestal for us to identify with him or applaud him.
To be fair, audiences might have rooted for the ants pitted against the arrogant jerk Heston is at the films beginning.
But all the romantic business is there as much to appeal to an audience of grown ups as much as going to character.
This story and The Most Dangerous Game were both in my freshman literature book in high school along with Chesterton’s The Blue Cross and Doyle’s Speckled Band. No wonder I learned how to read.
July 21st, 2014 at 9:59 pm
I think your interpretation of the romance (as a necessary prelude to the battle with the ants) is a good one, and in terms of intent, most likely a correct one, but I’m not quite comfortable with it, in terms of how it came across on the screen.
I’d have to watch the film again to see how satisfied I am with how it was done.
It might have been done better. My sense was that Leiningen was finally was able to raise her up in his mind to his level, rather than his having to come off his pedestal and down to hers.
It’s a matter of timing, though. He would have stayed to fight the ants either way. When did his transformation to accepting Joanna as his wife, and how well was it conveyed to the audience that the fight was for them as a couple rather than his alone?
As I said, I’ll need a second viewing to see how well it works for me now.
July 21st, 2014 at 10:04 pm
I have been wondering whether if anyone would point out that when I said “Some of us, who know full well what is coming in advance, may even be squirming in our seats in anticipation,” I may have been suggesting “ants in our pants.”
July 22nd, 2014 at 1:21 am
“Ants in our pants”…….Aaaaarrrggggh!!!!
David: You’re right about the structure of the story. I suppose that it’s the same with THE MOST DANGEROUS GAME, where the film needs Fay Wray’s characters raises the level of the stakes that McCrea is fighting for even higher. That said, I’ll bet a lot of audiences would be slightly impatient waiting for the action to begin, in a way that they wouldn’t in the rather more well structure JAWS.
July 22nd, 2014 at 2:23 am
AAAAARRRGGGHHH! indeed, that one almost hurt.
I don’t necessarily agree with how the romance was handled, but if you watch enough Heston films that’s not dissimilar to other characters he plays, and as for raising Johana up, he shows a human and vulnerable side at the end however much he is repressing it.
Compared to JAWS I agree, but this is pretty standard for the era and without a pretty girl in danger might well not have sold to audiences. JAWS came along when we were ready for it, audiences in the 50’s would neither have understood its structure or its style any more than we appreciate some films of that era today.
This was a prestige picture for Pal, a rare attempt at grown up fare with nothing really aimed at the younger audience. It’s brutal, fairly plain spoken sexually (Heston rejects her because she’s not a virgin and it is pretty clear she spots that he is), and graphic in its violence.
I agree the romance takes up too much of the film, but then at some point looking at ants would grow tiresome, and special effects cost money. Quite a few techniques were invented just to film this, ants not being the most cooperative actors.
The key scene is when Heston captures the ant scout and looks at him under the magnifying glass, clearly in grim admiration. We are meant to see that like the ants Heston has ravaged everything in his way and the ants and Parker are the only things there has ever been any question he might not conquer. Conrad and Heston both comment on his perpetual war with the river and jungle trying to reclaim his land. When he has to flood the land to stop the ants it is as much a defeat as a triumph — to save the woman he loves he gives up everything he has built. his only triumph is that he finds someone and something more valuable than the plantation. He and the ants both lose to the river and jungle.
Granted we want to see ants eating people, but this had an adult audience of men and women, including my mother who was there for the romance and not the ants. I think to judge this fairly we have to look at it outside of the ‘fanboy’ mentality as a film aimed at a much larger audience who were there for Heston and Parker as much as ‘marabunta.’ This was not your usual Saturday morning fare.
July 22nd, 2014 at 9:49 am
I have to say that when it came to actresses who could smolder, Eleanor Parker could smolder with the best of them.
July 22nd, 2014 at 1:29 pm
David: You keep making me look at this movie differently. There’s a lot more to it than I thought. Mentioning George Pal pulled me up a little bit, as I’d completely forgotten that he produced it. It really is a most un-Pal like film, not least because of the concentration on sex. It is a little bit like RED DUST in that respect, with the arrival of women causing the ordinary routine to dangerously falter. Thinking about it, Heston’s obsessive desire to control everything is broken by Parker finally working her way to the emotional centre of the man. Meanwhile his physical kingdom is stripped away by the actions of the ants. In both cases nature humbles him, whilst also making him a better person. He only achieves full maturity when he allows the waters (actual and metaphorical) to break free.