This Friday (29 June 2018) represents the
51st anniversary of Jayne Mansfield's death, so – as a timely tribute to the
ultimate sex kitten-gone-berserk – I’m posting some Jayne-related content in
her memory.
In May I made my long-suffering boyfriend sit
with me through ultra-low budget exploitation b-movie Female Jungle (1955). I
did warn him beforehand that I couldn’t vouch for its quality! A would-be
hardboiled film noir crime movie starring a frankly worn-out Lawrence Tierney,
Female Jungle turned out to be almost stultifyingly bad and inept, almost like
an Ed Wood Jr film. The running time is only 73-minutes long (it was meant to
be seen as part of a grindhouse or drive-in double feature, clearly) but the
pace was so plodding it felt like two hours! It’s a fascinating curio in the
context of Mansfield’s career, though: Female Jungle represented her film
debut! (Her early films flopped and it wasn’t until she triumphed on Broadway
in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? and returned to Hollywood as a hot property
that her movie career took off). In Female Jungle, the then-unknown starlet’s
signature sex-kitten-gone-berserk comedic persona wasn’t in place yet and it’s
fascinating to see Mansfield play a “straight” conventional bitchy and
unsympathetic nymphomaniac bad girl. On the plus side – in a glittery halter
top and sensational pair of painted-on leopard print Capri pants – Mansfield
certainly looks delectable!
More recently we watched the mildly funny 1958 comedy Western Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (also known as The Blonde and The Sheriff). It’s no great shakes by even the most generous stretch of the imagination, but it is of interest and not without fluffy retro charm. Considering it was released by 20th Century Fox, filmed in gleaming deluxe CinemaScope and directed by a prestigious filmmaker (Raoul Walsh) , Sheriff of Fractured Jaw must count as Mansfield’s last “reputable” mainstream Hollywood film. (From 1959 onward, she would mainly feature in low-budget Continental exploitation films – or what Neely O’Hara in Valley of the Dolls would call “nudies”). The film is set in the American West, but the interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios in London and the exteriors in Spain. Mansfield stars as frontier town Fractured Jaw’s tough and sensible saloon proprietress Miss Kate. (She plays her with a wandering Southern accent. Martha Saxton, author of 1975 biography Jayne Mansfield and The American Fifties, accurately concludes, "Jayne plays the role with a lot of gusto and an imperfectly thought-out accent which falls somewhere between Fort Laramie and Newark.”). Her incredibly wasp-waisted, tightly-corseted 1880s costumes (and Mansfield was pregnant at the time with her second child) are certainly noteworthy. As well as being saloon keeper, Kate multi-tasks as the saloon’s onstage chanteuse and these musical numbers provide Sheriff of Fractured Jaw’s most gloriously campy moments because Mansfield is clearly lip-synching along to another woman’s voice which bears no relation at all to her own (the singing is, in fact, via Connie Francis!). Watch for a cameo appearance from British character actor Sid James playing a drunk which anticipates his Carry On persona.
More recently we watched the mildly funny 1958 comedy Western Sheriff of Fractured Jaw (also known as The Blonde and The Sheriff). It’s no great shakes by even the most generous stretch of the imagination, but it is of interest and not without fluffy retro charm. Considering it was released by 20th Century Fox, filmed in gleaming deluxe CinemaScope and directed by a prestigious filmmaker (Raoul Walsh) , Sheriff of Fractured Jaw must count as Mansfield’s last “reputable” mainstream Hollywood film. (From 1959 onward, she would mainly feature in low-budget Continental exploitation films – or what Neely O’Hara in Valley of the Dolls would call “nudies”). The film is set in the American West, but the interiors were shot at Pinewood Studios in London and the exteriors in Spain. Mansfield stars as frontier town Fractured Jaw’s tough and sensible saloon proprietress Miss Kate. (She plays her with a wandering Southern accent. Martha Saxton, author of 1975 biography Jayne Mansfield and The American Fifties, accurately concludes, "Jayne plays the role with a lot of gusto and an imperfectly thought-out accent which falls somewhere between Fort Laramie and Newark.”). Her incredibly wasp-waisted, tightly-corseted 1880s costumes (and Mansfield was pregnant at the time with her second child) are certainly noteworthy. As well as being saloon keeper, Kate multi-tasks as the saloon’s onstage chanteuse and these musical numbers provide Sheriff of Fractured Jaw’s most gloriously campy moments because Mansfield is clearly lip-synching along to another woman’s voice which bears no relation at all to her own (the singing is, in fact, via Connie Francis!). Watch for a cameo appearance from British character actor Sid James playing a drunk which anticipates his Carry On persona.
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