From the 1950s: The Naked Jungle

1954 Drama
From Paramount Pictures

Directed by Byron Haskin

Starring

Eleanor Parker

Charlton Heston

William Conrad

Abraham Sofaer

This South American jungle tale of a marauding army of ants and the spirited mail-order bride who marries, sight unseen, the stern plantation owner was solid entertainment when first released and fares just as well today.  It held my interest from start to finish.

The film came to be in those fabulous fifties that loved its creature features.  Often featured were deadly mutant insects that have come from an arctic thaw or birthed out of radiation from atomic bomb tests.  There was The Deadly Mantis, The Black Scorpio, Tarantula and Them!   There was also The Creature from the Black Lagoon for something bigger and the prior year Jungle director Byron Haskin had aliens frighten us in The War of the Worlds.  And there were many more.

The Naked Jungle stands out for several reasons.  One is the star talent.  We did not see the likes of Eleanor Parker and Charlton Heston in such movies.  Additi0nally these lead characters are better developed than they usually are in this type of fare.  Also I consider this the story of a relationship, an odd marriage, that takes up screen time for two-thirds of the film.  It isn't until the last third that we even hear of the ants, the dreaded marabunta... a two-mile wide and 20-mile long column of army ants that will eat anything that is living.

The story opens on the Rio Negro River in the Amazon in 1901 where a beautiful woman from New Orleans is on her way to meet her new husband, a mysterious cocoa plantation owner.  We learn that Parker was helping Heston's brother compile a list of marriage candidates and she decided to apply herself.  Heston, in turn, without the benefit of a photograph, chose her because she could play the piano and he owned one.

She had every intention of being a stalwart helpmate and was looking forward to loving a strong husband.   She is dazzled by his open-air fortress.  He has moved out of his spacious bedroom so that she may have it.  She is disappointed that he has not come to the dock to meet her and disappointed more so when she meets him and finds him rigid and obviously awkward with women.

She is, of course not at all what he expected and the perpetually moody Heston is taken aback... in more ways than one.  You're very beautiful, intelligent and accomplished,  he tells her after her first piano recital.  There must be something wrong with you.  (Indeed, I can't be the only one who found it preposterous that a woman who looks like this would be a mail-order bride.)

She realizes quickly that Heston's brother has left out an important fact.  She is a widow.  She was married a year and her husband was a weakling and a drunkard.  Heston is horrified as he slaps his riding crop across his leg... everything here is fresh and new, he hisses.  You know a lot about men.  He looks at her as though she's contaminated.

She tours her vast estate with him.  He tells her there is much toil and suffering so your friends can have chocolate with their breakfasts in New Orleans.  She meets the house servants and bonds with a small boy.  She plays the piano professionally and elegantly.  She dresses beautifully and tries hard to be a good companion to a grumpy husband.  They have meals together but he says little.  She wants to be included in everything including witnessing the death of an employee who was caught with another man's wife.

He appears very strong but it is completely apparent that he doesn't hold a candle to her strength.  All they do, it seems, is fuss and she grows weary of it.  All you wanted, she says, is an ornament, something nice looking to go with the rest of the furniture.

The sexual tension is palpable.  We're certain he wants to throw his proxy bride on the canopied bed and have his way with her but for all his bravado, he is fearful.  One night as she is playing the piano and hits a sour key, she purrs to him if you knew more about music you'd realize that a good piano is better when it's played.  Hmmm.

Another evening of bantering and she exclaims I thought you didn't like me, that you were disappointed.  But you're afraid of me.  As he takes exception to that comment, she explains that her first husband was very weak.  She knows she is strong and wants a strong man at her side.  She says she is looking for the strength and purpose that was missing in her first marriage and she sees that her second is also weak but in a different way.  She starts to walk away.

I'm not through with you, Madam, he says in a louder voice.  Oh yes you are, she says as she leaves the room.

He decides they have no future together and tells her she will have to leave.  He says it will be awhile because transportation won't be readily available until then.  But before that can happen, we have moved into the final chapter of the story and that means the marabunta are marching.

At this point the story changes pace and aspect and the excitement swells.  A new type of tension takes the place of  marital discord.  Pairing up against a common enemy solves such problems.  Love finally blossoms as the couple unites to prepare their employees, animals and the mansion itself.  There are some creepy deaths.  Moats that have been built are useless because the ants learn to ride across the water on leaves.  Bridges are dynamited with little result.  Finally it is fire that comes to the rescue but at what cost?

I found the writing biting and great fun.  Several different writers were hired and the end result is perfection.

A month after it hit theaters, Paramount released a similar one... Elephant Walk with Elizabeth Taylor, Peter Finch and Dana Andrews.  Another jungle location, another gorgeous home, another story of a new marriage where the people didn't know each other very well and another living menace.  The Naked Jungle is better written and did better at the box office.  Perhaps the ants did more damage and were more lethal but rampaging elephants are more fun to watch than an ant.  I'm jus' sayin'.

Eleanor Parker received top billing and it is her words, her actions that propel the film to being as watchable as it is.  It is a strong female role worth cheering.  Nature gave her great beauty and Edith Head gave her great clothes.  She also apparently got on well with Heston and not all of his costars would say that.

Heston's billing shows he had still not achieved the fame he was seeking and he wouldn't until The 10 Commandments two years later.  He made a dozen or so earlier films that were largely B films designed to entertain rather than win awards.  Most of his characters were egotistical, uncommonly proud, moody and humorless.  Why do you suppose that was?  I'm not saying he wasn't good here... hell, few could have done it better.  He would repeat this husband and wife scenario with Anne Baxter in the poorly-titled Three Violent People (1956).

William Conrad plays the area's commissioner... blustery and forthright and appropriately afraid of the impending doom.  Burmese-born Abraham Sofaer plays the majordomo of all the property and home, the exact same role he played in the aforementioned Elephant Walk.  He fascinated me.

The esteemed Ernest Laszlo handled the expert cinematography.  

They're coming...!

The noise of the ants devouring everything in their way was created by swirling a straw in a glass of water with crushed ice and amplifying the sound.  Special effects seemed on the mark to me. 

The jungle scenes were filmed in Panama and the bridges that were dynamited were done in Florida.  Sadly, a local man was killed when the horse he was riding bolted at the sound of the explosion.  That gorgeous villa, so deep in the jungle, was built on a Paramount sound stage.  Boy, am I a downer or what?

Here's a trailer:

Next posting:

Another boy dancer