THE NAKED JUNGLE

US, 1954, 95 minutes, Colour.
Charlton Heston, Eleanor Parker, William Conrad, Abraham Sofaer, John Dierkes, Douglas Fowley.
Directed by Byron Haskin.

The Naked Jungle is an offbeat jungle adventure. It has very good production background: from George Pal as producer (noted for his science fiction and fantasy films, Destination Moon, Tom Thumb), director Byron Haskin (War of the Worlds) and a script team Philip Yordan and Ranald Mc Dougall.

Charlton Heston is the stolid hero and Eleanor Parker is his wife. The film, set in South American locations, has the romance on the plantation story. It is then changed as a plague of ants menaces the plantation and the humans have to battle to survive. The film is entertaining, has some suspense.

1. An enjoyable jungle adventure? Romance?

2. Location photography, colour? The special effects and editing for the battle with the ants? The musical score?

3. The title and the focus on the plantation, the jungle, human survival in the face of the experience of the jungle and its ants?

4. The plausibility of the plot: the focus on Christopher Leiningen, the cocoa plantation, marriage by proxy, the expectations at the turn of the century? The romantic clash? The invasion of the ants, the flooding of the plantation? The happy resolution?

5. Charlton Heston as Christopher Leiningen: severe, his owning the plantation, the management of the plantation? The atmosphere of South America and the jungle? The marriage by proxy? The arrival of Joanna? The house he prepared for her? His arrogance, suspicions of her, anger when he learns she has been married? His decision to send her away? His relationship with his workers? The tribes? The medicine man? The coming of the ants? The desperate fight against them, the decision to flood the plantation? His appreciating Joanna, falling in love with her? His decision to rebuild?

6. Joanna and her expectations, coming to South America? Her previous marriage? Her reaction to the household, the plantation? The workers? Her alienation from Leiningen? His boorish manner towards her? Anger at her previous marriage? Her going back? The news of the ants? Her decision to stag? The attack of the ants? The flooding? Her falling in love with Leiningen and staying?

7. The portrayal of the ants: in plague numbers, the infiltration, the attack, the crossing of the moat, the covering of the plantation? Their seeming intelligence and strategy? The human manoeuvres against them as a battle? The flooding of the plantation and their destruction?

8. The minor characters: the Commissioner, the white inhabitants of the territory? The Indians and their customs?

9. Satisfying action adventure? Disaster material? Romance?