The Naken Jungle needs to be released in Widescreen DVD
The poster (B. Graham etc.) who keeps asserting that this film was filmed in fullscreen ratio is all wet. I saw the original release and it was definitely widescreen. (Maybe not Cinemascope, but it impressed me by its size and color at the time.) And, no, it was not fullscreen cropped or matted to appear wide.
Paramount is out of its mind to do this supercolorful film in full screen only. (As the studios are for only issuing Sharky's Machine, Fearless, The Great Santini in fullscreen. But doing it to The Naked Jungle is the worst because of the gorgeous cinematography.)
Intrigue in the bush
The role of the arrogant and pompous plantation owner Christopher Leiningen was a perfect fit for Charlton Heston in the 1954 melodramatic adventure flick "The Naked Jungle". Leiningen carved out a massive cocoa plantation damming the local river in remote 1901 South America. The palatial estate he built was however missing the feminine touch. The lonely Heston commissioned his brother to find him a wife in New Orleans.
Heston's mail order bride turned out to be the headstrong, refined and attractive redhead Eleanor Parker. Their personalities immediately clashed and Heston planned to send her back home when a calamitous event suddenly occurred. The plantation came under the attack of an enormous colony of army ants which threatened to destroy everything in its path. The courage shown by both actors during this crisis cemented their relationship as they commence a new life together amid the devastation.
Byron Haskin's flick was typical of the heroic and romantic style of adventure flicks in the 50's. Very notable were the costumes created by wardrobe wizard Edith Head. A svelte Robert Conrad playing the local government commissioner was good in a supporting role.
Man vs. Nature.
Or is it The White Man vs. the Third World? Or Science vs. Nature? Whatever the theme, the movie, based on the short story Leiningen vs. The Ants by Carl Stephenson, takes 45 minutes before we even hear the word ant. Many people might see that as flaw but I see it as a sign of a good story - they spend half of the movie building up the characters before the ants come to bring them down. Charlton Heston plays the main character and the sexy Eleanor Parker plays his mail-order bride. Both are strong willed, with plans for the future and neither like to back down.
When one adds a army of ants, 20 miles long and 2 miles wide, heading right for the plantation, you change the film from a pretty good one to a great one.
Adventure yarns don’t come more ripping than King Solomon’s Mines, the classic Great White Hunter tale. Novelist H. Rider Haggard’s hero, Allan Quatermain (Stewart Granger), reluctantly agrees to lead an Englishwoman (Deborah Kerr) and her brother (Richard Carlson) deep into uncharted territory in Africa, in search of the lady’s lost husband. What follows is a cavalcade of boys’ adventure stuff: charging rhinos, cannibals, an incredible wildlife stampede, and the back-of-the-neck-tingly thrill of venturing into unmapped lands. The location shooting, including tribal rituals, is marvelous throughout, and the movie manages to pack a great deal of material into 102 minutes without ever seeming rushed. A remake of a 1937 film, King Solomon’s Mines... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Deborah Kerr - Stewart Granger Director(s): Andrew Marton - Compton Bennett DVD Release Date: Released the 11 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.97 Your Price: $15.98YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
It's never been as revered as The African Queen, but Elephant Walk is a similarly prestigious entry in the exotic adventure movie trend of the 1950s. This is one of those glossy Technicolor melodramas that inevitably climaxed in a scene of tragic destruction, typically intended to teach men a humbling lesson about the forces of nature. In this case, a seemingly delicate newlywed (Elizabeth Taylor) joins her husband (Peter Finch) on his tea plantation in Ceylon, only to uncover mysteries about the plantation and her husband's long-dead father, whose ghostly presence looms over the stately estate where elephants once roamed freely. Dana Andrews is the plantation foreman who catches Liz's attention when Finch is injured during one of many drunken interludes with a band of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Elizabeth Taylor - Dana Andrews - Peter Finch Director(s): William Dieterle DVD Release Date: Released the 12 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.99 Your Price: $13.49YOU SAVE $1.5!
Buy it
Among the most exciting of MGM swashbucklers, Richard Thorpe's 1952 Ivanhoe stars Robert Taylor as the medieval hero of Sir Walter Scott's novel. Returning to England from the Third Crusades, Ivanhoe is steadfast in his determination to raise the ransom for the captured King Richard (Norman Wooland), but the effort is full of peril. First is Ivanhoe's reunion with his estranged father (Finlay Currie), a Saxon who hates the Norman king and refuses to give his son the money. Then there's Ivanhoe's unpopular rescue of a wealthy Jew, Isaac (Felix Aylmer), from anti-Semites, and the subsequent decision by Isaac's beautiful daughter, Rebecca (Elizabeth Taylor), to pay Ivanhoe's entry fee in a tournament. (The strapped knight seeks the tourney's cash prize.) Wait, it gets worse: two of... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Robert Taylor - Elizabeth Taylor - Joan Fontaine Director(s): Richard Thorpe DVD Release Date: Released the 11 January 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.97 Your Price: $15.98YOU SAVE $3.99!
Buy it
This silky smooth film noir pits gruff police detective Dana Andrews, stiff and blunt in his street-bred manners, against a cultured columnist and acidic wit (Clifton Webb at his prissiest) in a battle of wits during a murder investigation. The cop is a romantic hiding under a hard-boiled exterior who falls in love with the beautiful victim through the portrait that hangs in her apartment. Gene Tierney, whose heart-shaped face mixes the exotic with the girl next door, brings the poise and calm of a model to her role as the object of every man's gaze and the target of a killer. Laura, handsomely shot in dreamy black and white, is the first and best of Otto Preminger's cool, controlled murder mysteries. In the gritty world of film noir it remains the most refined and elegant example... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Gene Tierney - Dana Andrews Director(s): Rouben Mamoulian - Otto Preminger DVD Release Date: Released the 15 March 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $14.98 Your Price: $8.98YOU SAVE $6!
Buy it
John Wayne personally produced many of his '50s films, which is why some of them have languished in corporate limbo following his death. The High and the Mighty was one of his most popular vehicles (no pun intended). This long, necessarily sedentary drama aboard an endangered airliner is a CinemaScope bridge between 1932's Grand Hotel and 1970s disaster movies. Despite Wayne's iconic presence as a pilot--now copilot--who survived the plane crash that wiped out his family, it's an ensemble movie with an impressive cast: Robert Stack sharing the cockpit, Oscar® nominees Claire Trevor and Jan Sterling, Laraine Day, Robert Newton, Paul Kelly, John Qualen, Regis Toomey, the ubiquitous Paul Fix, and director William A. Wellman's good-luck character actor Douglas Fowley.... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): John Wayne - Claire Trevor - Laraine Day Director(s): William A. Wellman DVD Release Date: Released the 02 August 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
List Price: $19.99 Your Price: $14.99YOU SAVE $5!
Buy it
