The Adventures of Jane

This film is based on the comic strip in England, which ran for many years, chronicling Jane, a pretty young lady who gets herself involved in situations and somehow ends up losing her dresses in the process. The lead, Ms. Oorter, was the model for Jane, but herein lies the problem for me. I feel that though she is an attractive lady she was too old to play her (she was about 36 when the film was released). I imagined Jane should be younger and they somewhat rectified that situation in a film called "Jane And The Lost City", made in the 80's. This film muddles along and the plot is pretty flimsy. There are elements of interest, but I feel even Peter Butterworth, who was in many Carry On films later, is somewhat wasted as a drunken man just stumbling around. Not horrible by any means, its just not that good. "Jane And The Lost City", though campy, was better. This film is less than an hour, but I still feel it was not good enough.

This is little better or more than an extension of the 1930's "Daily Mirror" comic strip about a rather hapless heroine "Jane" who frequently gets herself into scrapes that usually end up with her scantily clad (by the standards of the day) and in need of some sort of gallant rescue. In this film, she is given a bracelet without knowing that it contains an expensive diamond and her admirer and his slimy associate try to use her to smuggle the jewel into the country then to abscond with it. If one was to be seriously critical at all of this farcical little yarn, then it would that Christabel Leighton-Porter was probably just too old to portray the rather empty-headed bimbo that she was meant to be. There's a fun little cameo from Peter Butterworth as the drunk; but otherwise this is just a rather politically incorrect, forgettable, Saturday morning feature.

The Adventures Of Jane is based on a popular comic strip in Great Britain that never traveled across the pond. Jane is a stripper either on the job or off it she always seems to be shedding herself of her clothing.

I guess the closest thing to Jane over in America would have been Marie Wilson in her ingenuousness.

In this film Christabel Leighton-Porter is wooed with a bracelet by an admirer who is trying to make her a recruit in a smuggling racket.

In a role that called for a Marie Wilson, Ms. Leighton-Porter is not. A planned for series never materialized in fact her career never materialized.

Still it's a curiousity.

'Jane' was a very popular comic strip in wartime Britain. Drawn by Norman Pett, it began its long run in the Daily Mirror in 1932 as the misadventures of an innocently sexy young blonde. In 1938, with Don Freeman writing the continuities, 'Jane' gradually became more suggestive and then finally quite lewd. Many of Freeman's gags featured Jane caught in a state of undress ... or caught in some mishap which tore off her clothing. Sometimes the situation would get downright sadistic: I recall one comic strip in which Jane fell through the roof of a caravan but got stuck at waist level, with her skirts outside the caravan ... so that the men inside the vehicle had a fine view of Jane's underpants. The 'joke' in the strip was always secondary to one more excuse for showing Jane stripped to her undergarments or altogether nude. The comic strips in British newspapers were always more explicit than American ones: often, poor Jane would end up entirely naked, or wearing only her knickers ... the angles of Pett's artwork would always show us Jane's nudity whilst strategically concealing the most 'naughty' bits.

In the same way that Little Orphan Annie confided her thoughts to her mongrel Sandy, Jane's intimate confidant was her pet dachschund Fritz (an odd choice of breed and name, considering the anti-German sentiments of wartime).

During the war years, Jane's popularity reached an all-time high among British servicemen. The nearest American equivalent of 'Jane' would be Milton Caniff's character Miss Lace in 'Male Call' ... but, unlike Jane, Miss Lace usually kept her clothes on, and 'Male Call' was available only for servicemen, whereas Jane's nudity was on display in the Daily Mirror for any schoolboy who had the price of a paper.

'Jane' was actually very similar to the Playboy feature 'Little Annie Fanny', in that both comic strips were basically an excuse to depict a sexy woman with her clothes missing. In 1982, when I interviewed Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder at Elder's house in Englewood, New Jersey, I pointed out the similarities between their creation 'Little Annie Fanny' and the earlier 'Jane'. Kurtzman admitted that he was familiar with 'Jane' ... until he saw where the conversation was leading, and then he changed the subject.

Inevitably, many British males wanted to know if Pett's voluptuous creation was based on a real woman. Supposedly, he had used his own wife as his original model. When a theatrical producer decided to mount a stage vehicle based on 'Jane', the role went to Christabel Leighton-Porter, a shapely blond with no real acting experience and no singing ability. The act opened with Miss Leighton-Porter's delightful physique shown in silhouette, then the scrim rose to reveal her attributes while she chanted (not sang): "I'm Jane, Jane: the model, that's plain. I can't sing, I can't even croon. And the dog that I fondle is also a model that you've seen in a famous cartoon." For the stage act, Fritz was played by a stuffed toy (like the cat in a Puss in Boots panto.)

'The Adventures of Jane' is the film version of the stage show based on the comic strip. It suffers from certain problems: Jane's peak years were during the World War, so she's already begun her decline. Also, the story lines in the comic strip were always mere excuses for Jane to lose her clothing in compromising positions and get caught totally naked (or nearly so) in the presence of appreciative men. In 1949 Britain, the film censors were much stricter than the newspaper censors. Consequently, we never see the lovely Miss Leighton-Porter stripped down to nearly the degree of nudity that was a daily event for the newsprint version of Jane.

This film is directed by Alf Goulding, an Australian who had some impressive credits: he had previously worked with Laurel & Hardy and with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. Sebastian Cabot, an English actor who had his best successes on American television, plays a small role here. But 'The Adventures of Jane' is lacklustre. I'll rate this movie 3 points out of 10, and one point is in appreciation for Jane inspiring all those brave English servicemen to (dare I say it?) keep their peckers up.

Christabel Leighton-Porter is Jane Gay, a pretty girl in show business in some vague way that has her and her dachshund taking bows on stage in London and judging beauty contests elsewhere. Somehow, she gets involved in a diamond-smuggling operation that involves smuggling one diamond at a time.

It's based on the comic strip created by Norman Pett, in which Jane was a competent young woman who was always having her outer garments accidentally torn away -- in one morale-boosting event during the Second World War, she lost all of her clothes amidst a bunch of soldiers. Originally Pett's wife was the model for Jane. After 1939, Miss Leighton-Porter became the model.

This was Miss Leighton-Porter's only movie role, and the rather dull handling by directors Edward G. Whiting and Alf Goulding show why. Miss Leighton-Porter's skirt goes away only twice, although she does roll down a hill. Peter Butterworth plays a drunk who winds up in her bed by accident, and Sebastian Cabot can be spotted, although, as usual, I missed him.