The Adventures of Jane

In the United States, there is a stereotype that the British are extremely well mannered and sophisticated. This is in spite of evidence to the contrary which seems to say they can be just as lowbrow and dopey as the rest of us. Sure, they have produced many classic films as well as television shows (such as "Downton Abbey" and "I, Claudius")....but they also have brought the world "The Benny Hill Show" and drivel like "The Adventures of Jane".

So what IS "The Adventures of Jane"? Well, apparently it is a movie based on a comic strip for adults and Jane is apparently very accident prone and always ends up having her clothing ripped off of her! Sophisticated? Hardly! And in the film, it's pretty much what you'd expect, as it's filled with very bad jokes (the sorts you'd expect to hear on stage in a burlesque-type review) and Jane standing about in her underwear.

Overall, this film was too broadly written, acted and directed to be seen as anything other than a bad little curio. Apparently, the plan was originally to make a series of these films but the British public, fortunately, did not embrace the movie and further movies were dropped. It's bad and difficult to watch....trust me on this!

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.

'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.

Jane a British comic strip from wartime era, gained a flesh and blood version on theatre on late forties, initially it was planed as series, however it didn't get impact in box-office due it was harden beaten up by the puritan critics, thus stop a first episode, likewise the American Bette Page, somehow this genre didn't get too long quite sure due its period of time of release, on that time the costumers were interested in something spicy, although a massive common decency campaign attached a poorest financial results dropped it for good for our sorrow.

Jane is extremely sexy blonde bombshell, several men fought over its attention, as theatre entertainment, surround by many applicants she is involved in a smuggling diamonds to outside of England, many comic characters came along on the plot, also a beauty contest as well to gets fire the sexy proposition of movie, which has a dog neither to fill out the casting, the actress Christabel Leighton-Porter fill in perfectly the character in plenty physical attributes really bountiful, beauty legs, two front airbags and we must acknowledge, is very bounteous in those sexy sequences when its clothing is ripped off, just accidently of course.

I'm wondering about the lowest rates given by IMDB's members, surely gave by bitters users or something alike, whatever it's plenty fun if we forgot the mismatches, this movie got a color nowadays, which a saw on Youtube, gorgeous print, sadly underrated!!

Thanks for reading

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First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: Youtube / Rating: 6.

'Jane' was a popular comic strip character seen in British newspapers in the 1940s. She was a glamorous figure, ever losing her clothing in order to titillate the war-haunted male readership, and THE ADVENTURES OF JANE is a film designed to bring her voluptuous talents to the screen. It was made in Brighton on an obviously cheap budget, but sadly other than the novelty value there isn't really much reason to tune in.

The problem with the film isn't Jane so much, as Christabel Leighton-Porter does a pretty good job in the role. She's no actress, of course, but she's a statuesque blonde who makes an impact. There are a couple of mildly racy moments in which she loses her skirt or parades around in her underwear, but these feel very tame by modern standards and of course there's no nudity even hinted at.

The rest of the plot is episodic in nature and involves a gang of criminals who use Jane to smuggle a priceless diamond into the country. The emphasis is on dated and genteel comedy throughout but the film lacks decent actors and plotting to make it work. Jane's dachshund, Frits, is probably the best actor in it. Watch out for Peter Butterworth in a random extended cameo playing a drunk.