The Human Jungle

I remember watching this series when I was a young boy. And I've always been dismayed that the series never made it to home video on either VHS, Laserdisc, or DVD. Fortunately, someone uploaded the entire two-season, 26-episode series in 480P to YouTube. And using Firefox download helper, I was able to download the entire series - which I'll shortly be converting to DVD format.

I've re-watched most of the episodes and am convinced this series was one of the best dramatic series of its time. That doesn't mean the content is always pleasing. In one episode, after his patient had undergone some drug therapy for an unreasonable fear of sunlight, Dr. Corder reassures his patient by telling him that "electro-shock therapy" will begin shortly. Yup, back in 1963, it was considered a viable treatment in the psychiatric community (now abandoned, thank goodness). But on the side of progressive thinking in a different episode, Dr. Corder didn't even bat an eyelash when a 62 year-old patient admitted that her guilt had come from a Lesbian attraction she experienced when she was younger. He treated her "guilt" as the problem, not her sexual orientation. And in 1963, the psychiatric community still considered homosexuality to be a mental disorder.

The writing was superb. The acting was superb. The settings and the stories were all very believable and, in many cases, riveting. You can't ask for much more than that in a dramatic series. If it's ever digitally remastered and released on DVD, I'll be one of the first people to buy it. Until then, I'll still enjoy the downloaded episodes on DVD - though some of them have a weathered look.

UPDATE!!! The complete series is being released on DVD but, so far, only in the U.K. The release is set for mid-June 2012.

Dated but enjoyable. Watched a few episodes and was unmoved, but stuck with it and was eventually drawn in by the interesting stories and generally great performances. It's a somewhat strange 1960s world, both familiar and alien to see. And I'm ready to to watch another episode and go back into that world.

I am 72 years old now but still remember seeing this superb tv series on tv in the mid 1960s.For a while episodes had been shown on You Tube.com but were taken down presumably as Talking Pictures had bought up the tv series of "The Human Jungle"in their entireity.What a find as I was idly re-tuning my tv to go back to my youth to see these wonderful "Cholomdley- Warner" (to quote a Harry Enfield expression ) films again on this wonderful channel 81 ! tonight at 9pm I saw Johnny Sekka in "The 24 hour man".My favourite episode is "Solo Performance" (1964) starring the late Margaret Lockwood which I hope they will repeat.If so I will have to make a date to record these episodes on my old VCR.

I first saw this excellent series when I was about ten years old back in the 60's, and even though much of the content went over my young head I found it fascinating. At the time, much of British TV was made up of shows like the Avengers, No Hiding Place, The Scales of justice, Gideon's Way etc, and although they were good they tended to be rather 'samey'. The Human Jungle was different, dealing as it did with the human condition, mental illness and relationships. I cannot agree with some of the comments disparaging the show for not falling into the same mould as those productions. Far from boring, I found Herbert Lom perfect in the role of Roger Corder, and the rest of the regular cast, although a little featureless and paper-thin were perfectly good. The film quality is very nice and in common with most other programmes from this period, every word uttered by the actors is as clear as a bell. Great viewing.

I don't recall seeing 'The Human Jungle' when it was originally shown on TV but its return on the excellent 'Talking Pictures' channel has provided much pleasure. In every respect, the production is very good, with credible storylines and characters, and crisp dialogue and photography. I have never found Herbert Lom to fail to deliver, whatever his role, and this is certainly no exception as he fits the part of Dr Roger Corder perfectly and acts it with aplomb. And he is invariably well-supported by the other actors, who are a veritable cornucopia of reliable stalwarts from the period - mostly well-recognised if not always easy to name. Fiction it is, but it is convincing as well as entertaining and it is perhaps a pity that Dr Corder is not in reality available for consultation - not that I am (yet) in need of psychiatric help!