Duelo na Selva

Reading here that an assistant director on this film was killed in the rapids no doubt filming the final action sequence of Duel In The Jungle, makes me wonder was it worth it. This poor man didn't exactly die for the making of Citizen Kane.

Duel In The Jungle finds Dana Andrews heading the cast of a British production where he's an insurance investigator sent to Africa to investigate the death of David Farrar, a rich adventurer on whom the company has written a million dollar policy. The company doesn't want to fork over that kind of loot without it's own investigation.

Andrews also devotes time to harassing and that's the only way you can describe it, Farrar's fiancé Jeanne Crain. That's all right because Farrar is a nasty villain.

The film was shot on location in South Africa and Rhodesia and good location shots were wasted on a rather predictable action/adventure film. It isn't The African Queen or King Solomon's Mines you'll be seeing with Duel In The Jungle.

When I saw the listing on Britain's Talking Pictures TV channel, I predicted that it would include travelogue footage, back projection and a woman remaining glamorous despite the privations of the outback.

So it proved. Dana Andrews plays an insurance investigator suspicious of David Farrar's reported death that will cost his company $2 million ($19 million in 2019). From London he travels to Africa, where he proves a rugged, outdoors type, adeptness with a duelling pistol being one of his skills.

Along the way he shows a great deal of interest in Jeanne Crain, the fiancée of the missing man; in today's politically-correct environment it would be seen as harassment. On arrival in Rhodesia, Crain is escorted by a group of natives to where her fiancé is hiding out. (I did wonder how "politically correct" this would have been in 1950s' Rhodesia?) Back in London she's a personal assistant but seems to adapt to outdoor rigours very easily. Happily when she's reunited with Farrar in a remote native village, she has access to half-a-dozen highly-fashionable outfits, including an evening dress. Andrews also benefits from several changes of clothes, though one might guess that these were loaned to him by Farrar.

The film ends with a chase down the river, ending with Crain falling into the river and getting soaked. A few minutes later, her hair has recovered its elegance and her smart yellow dress (with petticoat underneath) still looks good.

Several well-know actors have minor roles, including Wilfred Hyde White (as charming as ever), Walter Gotell and Paul Carpenter, on his way to starring in B (or C) pictures.

A very average film, then, though the scenes shot on location are better than usual for the period. Almost inevitably, there are incidents (several) with snakes, a lion v tiger fight and a cute monkey.

I am wondering if there was product placement,because I would swear that the native boatmen were singing "I'm with the Abbey National".The Abbey being a big building society.David Farrer as the villain easily steals the acting honours.At the end there is a credit for Elstree Studios over a photo of the studio.So I presume it was they who were responsible for the truly awful process photography.

"Destiny seems to insist on throwing us together," a persistent and cocky Dana Andrews tells his lovely and reluctant STATE FAIR, MADISON AVENUE and HOT RODS TO HELL three-decade co-star in their second feature, DUEL IN THE JUNGLE...

An adventure where Andrews seems more a reluctant gentlemen the likes of Cary Grant or David Niven than an intrepid action star: a proverbial kite in an ongoing breeze instead of a determined salmon moving upstream...

With a touch of character-actor about him, Andrews often tried very hard to stretch beyond the limited leading man persona, even when he played the leading man, so the part as a New York insurance investigator in London, England, about to catch a plane stateside but being called back at the last minute, fits like brand new expensive and shiny gloves. His voice is a tad higher-pitched, as if sped-up while delivering witty and sophisticated one-liners: imagine if his LAURA co-star Clifton Webb were his dialect coach and there you have it...

A British-produced b-movie programmer, DUEL IN THE JUNGLE has three acts in three different locations: first England; then a ship to Africa during a heavy storm; then settling down (albeit far too long) in Africa itself: Making the best scenes in transit or in-between as Dana sticks to Crain, the wife of a missing eccentric millionaire, to find out if he's really dead; at which point her phantom mother-in-law would collect the insurance...

One of several red-herrings to sift through: But his primary target (to whom Dana's instantly attracted, for good reason) is Jeanne Crain as naïve newlywed, Marian. Despite wearing far too much makeup, Crain's as pretty as the prettiest picture - sophisticated, classy, down-to-earth and, ducking away from Dana's strategic advances, the complete opposite of her smitten STATE FAIR lass was to Dana's cocky newspaperman...

But in this hat-tipping, movable feast as our two attractive Americans converse like polite tea-toddlers, there's a pulpy touch of intrigue with attempts at Hitchcock style suspense with a dash of Hemingway machismo, for the villain...

And if DUEL had stuck longer in England or at sea it would have flowed much better...

Within the titular African JUNGLE are random stock footage of wildlife as the actors seem all too studio-safe in front of superimposed backdrops (also a Hitchcock thing): Here's where our hero and heroine bond, and just enough for the British con artist to show his true, lethal colors...

Plus he's got the higher ground on his ground, making Dana finally have to trade in his charming sophistication for a little of that WHERE THE SIDEWALK ENDS strength and agility.

Dana Andrews stars in this B-grade jungle adventure as an insurance investigator who teams up with the widow (Crain) of a diamond merchant (Farrar) who has apparently drowned after falling from a boat. Cautioned by native guide Vincent (Mataka) that his presence won't be welcome when they reach the village, Andrews persists in his doggedness to uncover the truth about Farrar's disappearance, and in his attempts to seduce the now nubile widow.

Assistant director Tony Kelly died making this picture, so it's of some comfort to know that it isn't a bad little pot-boiler, building some reasonable tension and punctuated with occasional light humour (the scene in which the chimp empties their luggage from the jeep is worth a chuckle). George Montgomery's look-a-like brother Dana Andrews is sturdy without being marvellous, and Farrar plays the obnoxious British git with aplomb.

Superimposing the actors over the white-water rapids backdrop, or in a confrontation with a menacing lion often looks clumsy, but this B-picture isn't staking any grand claims, just mild entertainment for afternoon channel-surfing.