West End Jungle purports to be an exposé of the scandalous sinful world of prostitutes and strippers. It’s a classic exploitation movie in the style of the classic American exploitation movies of the 1930s, 40s and 60s. It tells us in shocked tones about some “social evil” while of course offering us as much salacious material on that subject as the film-maker could get way with. The American exploitation movie-makers, such as the notorious Forty Thieves, figured out the way to do this. You offer the viewer lots of sinfulness and skin while covering yourself by including a morally disapproving voice-over narration or a moralising intro and epilogue. If you get arrested for obscenity you can then claim you are performing a public service by exposing vice. Given the insanity of the mindset of censors you had a good of getting away with it. The morally censorious intros or narrations are what was known in the world of the carnies as a square-up.
Producer Arnold L. Miller (1922-2014) was one of the leading figures in 1960s British exploitation film-making. Along with his collaborator Stanley A. Long (1933-2012) he perfected the sex and sin exposé film, adding some touches of the bizarre to spice things up.
West End Jungle begins with the narrator telling us, in shocked tones, about the evil of prostitution in London. He throws in every moralistic cliché in the book. Decent women cannot walk the streets at night because of those wicked prostitutes. Of course viewers ate this stuff up. In 1961 people were as interested in sex and naked women as they have always been and always will be but they loved to take a morally superior tone. And making life miserable for prostitutes and strippers has always been a popular occupation. Perhaps one day it will be possible for sex to be regarded in a calm rational manner, regarded as a normal part of life, in Britain and America but there’s no sign of that day getting any closer. It’s depressing to consider that public and official attitudes towards prostitution and sex work in general are just as narrow-minded today as they were in 1961 when this movie was made.
The loathing and fear of sex, the hatred of women and the seething contempt for lonely men really is laid on thick. The narrator is practically foaming at the mouth. But of course that was the only acceptable approach to sex at the time. Sex was dirty and disgusting. Prostitutes and strippers needed to be punished and humiliated. Any other approach would have resulted in the banning of the film.
The movie is of course mostly faked, in order to make sure that there was not a shred of human warmth and sympathy displayed.
Even having gone to such elaborate lengths to satisfy the puritanical censors this movie is still astonishingly tame. There’s absolutely no nudity whatsoever.
None of this was enough to satisfy the British censor who banned anyway. The British public had to be protected from the disturbing knowledge that there was such a thing as sex.
You can’t help wondering at the response of audiences at the time. Presumably audiences were so desperate to see something at least vaguely sexual that they simply ignored the narration.
The movie begins by telling us, with a great deal of relish, about the British Government’s latest measures to stamp out sex in Britain, by (naturally) making life as miserable as possible for prostitutes.
But, alas, when prostitutes were driven off the streets they discovered other ways to find clients. It’s almost as if people actually like sex, a horrifying thought in 1961.
We get a glimpse of “clip joints” and strip clubs, painted as dens of sin and iniquity.
We also discover that respectable businessmen provide call girls to other businessmen with whom they want to close a deal. This also providers useful ammunition for blackmail. In this case the call girl is Lisa. She lives in a luxury flat, wears gorgeous clothes, drinks champagne, has a maid and appears to be the most confident self-assured young woman you could ever meet. We are however assured that her life is nothing but degradation and misery.
Naturally we’re not supposed to believe a single word the narrator tells us. Arnold L. Miller was in the sex business and the movie was all about exploiting sex. Miler had the crazy idea that people liked sex and liked seeing it on the screen. If you’re in on the joke then the narration, and the phoney dialogue, will provide you with a great deal of amusement.
If you buy the Extended Edition DVD you get a number of extras. The interviews with Miller and with Lord Wolfenden (the man responsible for the banning of street prostitution) are interesting. There’s a short film by Miller but it’s about plastic surgery and is of no interest or relevance.
One of the extras is very interesting indeed. It’s the 1976 colour documentary Get ’em Off, a history of strip-tease. Shot mostly at the famous Nell Gwynne strip club it was made at a fascinating moment in the history of strip-tease. The girls were now showing everything, and offering more than just tantalising glimpses of frontal nudity. But strip-tease had not yet abandoned its theatrical roots.The girls were still putting a lot of thought and effort into their routines, they were trying to make their routines distinctive, they could actually dance. They were still trying to put on a genuine show. They still thought of themselves as entertainers. And some of the routines shown here are amazingly bizarre and fascinating. The film includes lots of frontal nudity but it’s mostly worth seeing for its sheer exuberant excess.
It’s definitely worth buying the Extended Edition to get this gem of 70s British sexploitation.
Miller and Long went on to make more faux-documentaries including the rather interesting Primitive London and London in the Raw.
West End Jungle is an intriguing time capsule, it’s both very funny and rather sad when you consider the lengths film-makers had to go to in order to deal with sexual subjects. It’s worth seeing for that reason, and the extras make the disc worth buying.
No comments:
Post a Comment