The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield | |
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Directed by | Charles W. Broun, Jr. Joel Holt Arthur Knight |
Screenplay by | Charles Ross |
Produced by | Dick Randall |
Starring | Jayne Mansfield |
Narrated by | Carolyn De Fonseca (uncredited) |
Cinematography | Manuela Folena |
Edited by | Manuela Folena |
Music by | Marcello Gigante |
Distributed by | Blue Ribbon Pictures |
Release date |
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Running time | 99 minutes |
Countries | United States France West Germany |
Language | English |
The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield is a 1968 mondo [2] documentary film chronicling the travels of actress Jayne Mansfield. It was directed by Charles W. Broun, Jr., Joel Holt and Arthur Knight.
The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield began production in 1964 and continued shooting sporadically through 1967 as the budget was limited. The film consists of Mansfield visiting various locations throughout Europe and the United States. The European footage, shot in Rome and Paris, features Mansfield observing Italian roadside prostitutes, running from the paparazzi and attending the Cannes Film Festival. She is also filmed visiting "unusual" European locations such as a French naturist community, strip clubs, a gay bar and a massage parlor. The footage shot in the United States features Mansfield judging a transvestite beauty pageant in New York City along with footage of dancers at a Los Angeles topless bar. Musical performances by the all-girl topless band The Ladybirds(es) and Rocky Roberts & The Airedales (to which Mansfield does the Twist) are also included. Rounding out the film are clips of Mansfield's nude scenes from the 1963 sex comedy Promises! Promises! , the 1964 Italian film Primitive Love, and shots of her Playboy magazine pictorial. [3]
Production ceased after Mansfield died in a car accident in June 1967. Upon her death, the film's producers added news footage about her death and photographs from the scene of her fatal car accident. [4] The film concludes with a tour of Mansfield's Los Angeles home, the Pink Palace, given by her ex-husband Mickey Hargitay and a video tribute. [5]
Working titles for the film include Jayne Mansfield Reports, Mansfield Reports Europe and Mansfield By Night. [5] As the film was edited and released after Mansfield's death, actress Carolyn De Fonseca (who was Mansfield's official voice dubber for European productions) was hired to mimic Mansfield's voice for the narration. [2]
Distributed by Blue Ribbons Pictures, The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield premiered on April 18, 1968 in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was released with an X rating ("for adults only") due to its adult content and nudity. [5]
In September 2003, Something Weird Video released The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield along with another mondo film The Labyrinth Of Sex on Region 1 DVD. [6]
Russell Albion Meyer was an American film director, producer, screenwriter, cinematographer, and editor. He is known primarily for writing and directing a series of successful sexploitation films that featured campy humor, sly satire and large-breasted women, such as Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (1970), the latter of which he considered his definitive work.
Jayne Mansfield was an American actress and Playboy Playmate. A sex symbol of the 1950s and early 1960s, Mansfield was known for her numerous publicity stunts and open personal life. Although her film career was short-lived, she had several box-office successes, and won a Theatre World Award and Golden Globe Award, and soon gained the nickname of Hollywood's "smartest dumb blonde."
Miklós Károly Hargitay, was an Hungarian-American actor and the 1955 Mr. Universe.
Cannibal Holocaust is a 1980 Italian cannibal film directed by Ruggero Deodato and written by Gianfranco Clerici. It stars Robert Kerman as Harold Monroe, an anthropologist who leads a rescue team into the Amazon rainforest to locate a crew of filmmakers that have gone missing while filming a documentary on local cannibal tribes.
Mamie Van Doren is an American actress, singer, model, and sex symbol who rose to prominence in the 1950s and 1960s. A blonde bombshell, she is one of the "Three M's" along with Marilyn Monroe and Jayne Mansfield, who were friends and contemporaries. In 1953, Van Doren, then named Joan Lucille Olander, signed a seven-year contract with Universal, which hoped that she would be their version of Marilyn Monroe. During her time at Universal, she starred in teen dramas, exploitation films, musical, and comedy films among other genres. She has married five times, and had intimate affairs with many other Hollywood actors. She was one of the leading sex symbols in the 1950s.
Mondo film is a subgenre of exploitive documentary films. Many mondo films are made in a way to resemble a pseudo-documentary and usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, or situations. Common traits of mondo films include portrayals of foreign cultures, an emphasis on taboo subjects such as death and sex, and staged sequences presented as genuine documentary footage. Over time, the films have placed increasing emphasis on footage of the dead and dying.
In film, nudity may be either graphic or suggestive, such as when a person appears to be naked but is covered by a sheet. Since the birth of film, depictions of any form of sexuality have been controversial, and in the case of most nude scenes, had to be justified as part of the story.
Female Jungle is a 1955 black-and-white film noir directed by Bruno VeSota and starring Kathleen Crowley, Lawrence Tierney, John Carradine and Jayne Mansfield. The production was Mansfield's first film, as well as the only American International Pictures entry into film noir.
Mondo Topless is a 1966 pseudo-documentary directed by Russ Meyer, featuring Babette Bardot and Lorna Maitland among others. It was Meyer's first color film following a string of black and white "roughie nudies", including Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! While a straightforward sexploitation film, the film owes some debt to the French New Wave and cinéma vérité traditions, and is known to some under the titles Mondo Girls and Mondo Top.
Promises! Promises! is a 1963 American sex comedy film directed by King Donovan and starring Tommy Noonan and Jayne Mansfield. Released at the end of the Production Code era and before the MPAA film rating system became effective in 1968, it was the first Hollywood film of the sound era to feature nudity by a mainstream star (Mansfield).
The Loves of Hercules is a 1960 international co-production film starring Jayne Mansfield and her then husband Mickey Hargitay. The film was distributed internationally as Hercules vs. the Hydra.
Matt Cimber is an American producer, director, and writer. He is known for directing genre films including The Candy Tangerine Man, The Witch Who Came from the Sea,Hundra, and Butterfly. Cimber has been called "an unsung hero of 70s exploitation cinema." He was co-founder and director of the Gorgeous Ladies of Wrestling (GLOW) professional wrestling promotion and syndicated television series. Cimber also occasionally acts in films, television, and theatre.
Carolyn De Fonseca was an American actress based in Rome. She worked extensively as a voice actress for the English-language dubbing of several hundred foreign films from the early 1960s and onwards. She was also the wife of actor/voice dubber Ted Rusoff, with whom she frequently worked. She died in 2009.
Jayne Mansfield was an actress, singer, Playboy playmate and stage show performer who had an enormous impact on popular culture of the late 1950s despite her limited success in Hollywood. She has remained a well-known subject in popular culture ever since. During a period between 1956 and 1957, there were about 122,000 lines of copy and 2,500 photographs that appeared in newspapers. In an article on her in the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture (1999), Dennis Russel said that "Although many people have never seen her movies, Jayne Mansfield remains, long after her death, one of the most recognizable icons of 1950s celebrity culture." In the novel Child of My Heart (2004) by Alice McDermott, a National Book Award winning writer, the 1950s is referred to as "in those Marilyn Monroe/Jayne Mansfield days". R. L. Rutsky and Bill Osgerby has claimed that it was Mansfield along with Marilyn Monroe and Brigitte Bardot who made the bikini popular.
Jayne Marie Mansfield is an American actress and model. She is the first child and eldest daughter of 1950s Hollywood sex symbol and Playboy Playmate Jayne Mansfield and Mansfield's ex-husband Paul. Mansfield is also the elder half-sister of actress Mariska Hargitay. In July 1976, Mansfield became the first daughter of a Playmate to be a featured model in Playboy. To date, only one other daughter of a Playmate has been featured in the magazine. Additionally, Mansfield is the only model who was featured in 100 Beautiful Women along with her mother in the magazine's 1988 special issue. She has acted in the film Olly, Olly, Oxen Free (1978) and TV production Blond in Hollywood (2003).
Single Room Furnished is a 1968 drama film featuring Jayne Mansfield in her final "filmed" starring role. The film is based on the stage play of the same title by Gerald Sanford, adapted by Matt Cimber, who also directed. The screenplay is by Michael Musto.
Primitive Love is a 1964 Italian sex comedy film directed by Luigi Scattini and starring Franco Franchi, Ciccio Ingrassia, Jayne Mansfield and Mickey Hargitay. The film attempts to combine a typical Mansfield sex comedy with the mondo film genre by including footage of various native customs and rituals from around the world.
Paolo Cavara was an Italian screenwriter and film director. He is best known for collaborating with Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco E. Prosperi on the 1962 mondo film Mondo Cane, and for directing the fiction film The Wild Eye (1967) and two giallo films, Black Belly of the Tarantula (1971) and Plot of Fear (1976).
The Tropicana Holiday was a striptease revue starring Jayne Mansfield. It was launched in February 1958 at the Tropicana casino on the Las Vegas Strip under a four weeks contract which was extended to eight. The opening night raised $20,000.00 for March of Dimes. Mansfield received $25,000.00 per week for her performance as Trixie Divoon in the show. The showgirls were paid $200.00 per week. The show was produced by Monte Proser and stage managed by Earl Barton. Nat Brandwynne and Orchestra played to original music by Gordon Jenkins. Glen Holse designed the set. Mansfield's last nightclub act French Dressing was at Latin Quarter in New York City in 1966. It was a modified version of the Tropicana show, and ran for six weeks with fair success.
Dick Randall was an American film producer, screenwriter, actor and assistant director. He was known for his involvement in the production of exploitation films in Italy, Hong Kong, Spain, the Philippines and the United Kingdom. Randall's career covered a wide array of genres, including mondo documentaries, erotica, giallo, martial arts and slasher films.