The Human Jungle, She's a Tramp and that's Just Fine

"I'm a tramp, okay!" Yes! This declaration by Jan Sterling in her role as a...tramp. Too strong of a word? Hussy?  Slut? Skank? No matter...we like her...what a dish. In this film she is a stripper. Okay, more than a stripper, a nightclub singer/ exotic dancer. She is actually described as a "Tassel Tossing Teaser." Really. Uh oh...former Boston Celtic and Los Angeles Dodger legend Chuck Connors wants her dead. Today we look at a gritty police Film Noir classic, "The Human Jungle," directed by Joseph M. Newman, from 1954.

Intending to leave the force, John "Danny" Danforth (Gary Merrill) is convinced to stay and clean up a demoralized precinct. The precinct is located in an area of the city which is overrun with violent crime.  Now captain of the precinct, Danny institutes changes. Arrest everyone! Shake things out. The murder case in question is stripper/nightclub singer Lilian Dean. No one is talking and Danny suspects the behemoth boyfriend, Ear Swados (Connors). He won't talk and either will anyone else. His new GF is another hot blonde singer/stripper, Mary (Sterling). She has a couple of musical numbers and the makers of the film push the censorship envelope with some of her routines. You'll like those. Danny knows she is the weak link and need her to roll over on Earl and the ownership of the club in which she performs.

Mary knows the score and will not talk. Now the crime boss who owns the club, Leonard (Florenz Ames), and his henchman Mandy (Claude Akins) begin framing Danny's detectives for police brutality. Now Danny needs to clean this case up before City Hall guts his precinct as the newspapers have turned public opinion against tough policing. Oh...Danny's conscious is his wife, the beautiful Pat (Paula Raymond). Always good to see Paula Raymond. Now Mary, proud to be a tramp, makes fools of Danny and his men as she is steadfast against helping them. Uh oh...poor Mary...she will play the sap now.  However steadfast she is, the mobsters realize she is a weak link, and so does Earl.  Little does Mary know, she has more to fear from Leonard and his boys than she does from Danny and his detectives.

Will the beautiful Mary get into a vicious catfight with Pat?  Okay, silly question...but we can always hold out hope.  Will Mary ever decide to help the detectives bust the crime syndicate operated out of the nightclub?  Will Earl murder Mary just as he did Lilian Dean?  This is a gritty one with little humor or diversion.  Police Film Noir all the way with car chases, shootouts, and a nice tour of the Pabst Blue Ribbon Brewery...you'll see.  See "The Human Jungle" and enjoy a dame who knows she is a tramp!  Something refreshing about that...just saying.   

 

Behind Locked Doors, Love Among the Insane

Can insane people fall in love? Okay, I hear you!  Sure, one might say only the insane fall in love. Whatever your experiences are with falling in love, never a too rational endeavor, we will see it play out in our film today.  Kind of.  Set in an insane asylum, always a good metaphor for the society we live in, a private eye is falling in love...and not with Tor Johnson. Tor Johnson?  The guy from "Plan 9 from Outer Space"? Yep, he's in it...but fear not...he won't be falling in love.  Our feature today is 1948's "Behind Locked Doors," directed by Budd Boetticher.

Corrupt Judge Finlay Drake (Herbert Heyes) is now a big ally of the mob. Wanted, he is in hiding. His buddy, Dr. Clifford Porter (Thomas Browne Henry) runs an insane asylum and fixes up a luxury room in the locked ward for the judge. No one will look there. Some good investigating reporting work by the sultry Kathy (Lucille Bremer) follows the judge's hot GF, Madge (Gwen Donovan) to the asylum at night and theorizes she is there to see the judge. Now Kathy hires hunk private eye Ross (Richard Carlson) to pretend to be insane, get admitted to the asylum, and snoop around for the judge. He does, only because Kathy is really pretty and he wants to kiss her a lot. Once in the asylum, Ross sees weird stuff...I know, it's a loony-bin...but beyond that, other weird stuff.  A brute attendant, Larson (Douglas Fowley) roughs up, or has roughed up, inmates that yell and misbehave.

Ross sees the locked ward is off limits to all but Larson and Dr. Porter.  Inmates who scream or snoop too close to the locked ward are taken into it by Larson and put in a cell with Tor Johnson who believes he is a heavyweight boxer.  Tor pummels them, sometimes to death. Meanwhile the pretty Kathy, posing as Ross' wife, keeps snooping and every few days comes to see Ross. Now Kathy has a line when Madge is due back for a nighttime visit. Sadly, Dr. Potter and Larson are on the verge of figuring out that Ross is a plant. Fearing the press, or the cops are on to the judge's whereabouts, they act.  Yep, Tor Johnson is part of their plan to do away with Ross.  Uh oh again, Kathy has fallen in love with Ross and knows he is in peril, so she...well, see the movie and see how a nubile babe acts when the man she loves is in trouble.

Will Tor Johnson pummel Ross? What exactly is the judge doing in the locked ward in addition to hiding from authorities?  Will the beautiful Kathy save her man, or will she find herself in Tor Johnson's cell?  This is a good one and perhaps an all too obvious metaphor about falling in love.  See "Behind Locked Doors" and sample a world filled with the insane.