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Naked Jungle, The [1954]

Starring: Charlton Heston, Eleanor Parker
Director: Byron Haskin
Format: PAL
Released: 31 Jan 2005
RRP: £15.99
Average Rating:

Customer Reviews

"Forty square miles of agonising death!" - By: Trevor Willsmer, 19 Mar 2006
The Naked Jungle’s reputation rests on its last couple of reels, when plantation owner Charlton Heston battles the Marabunta, the twenty-mile long, two-mile wide army of billions of soldier ants (“forty square miles of agonizing death!”) heading straight for the empire he carved out of the jungle with his bare hands. Well, his & the local natives bare hands. Of course, you have to get through an hour of soap opera first as the arrogant & virginal Chuck (“They have a word for men who go to the native villages at night. No one ever used that word about me”) is more than a tad miffed to discover that after shipping new furniture & a new piano out to the jungle that he’s been sent a second-hand mail-order bride in Eleanor Parker, despite her admonitions that “If you knew anything about music, you’d know that a good piano always sounds better if it’s been played!” But then you have to expect that sort of thing when you marry by proxy (we learn that William Conrad, who played the Heston role in the earlier radio version of the original story, stood in for Parker!). Still, at least Ranald Macdougal & blacklisted Ben Maddow have fun with the script with exchanges like “I’ve been trying not to irritate you.” “I noticed that. I find it irritating.” It would have been good to have less of the matrimonials & more of the Marabunta, but the picture is great fun for both the right & wrong reasons & I can’t say I felt short-changed revisiting it.

No extras at alll, but the fullframe transfer is very good.