La Môme aux dollars

I've just seen this! It was oddly compelling. My partner gave up on it in the first half hour, but I just HAD to see it all of the way through! As others have said, it's about three thieves on the run after stealing money that was to be sent back to the USA for destruction. What a strange yet wonderful film. It was obviously made towards the end of Jayne's career, as her star was falling...but she acts as if she was still on the A-List! But it's bottom of the barrel-ness makes it (and her performance) all the more interesting!

The movie starts off slowly, but once the thieves make an open sea break for it (with hostage in tow) and end up on a kooky island estate run by a demented older woman, things really shift gears and it becomes very (unintentionally) avant garde!

In this movie you get a way-past-her-prime Jayne doing her own thing (she truly seems to be in her own world while chaos reigns around her), an older woman with a few screws loose, a mysterious killer offing everyone one by one, Cameron Mitchell who never takes the time to wash off the blood and grime that is all over his face, a balding, monocled butler who looks like he's from a 2nd rate (3rd rate?) touring company of "SUNSET BOULEVARD", and did I mention Jayne? See Jayne dance! See Jayne in a cat fight! See Jayne roll around in her undies on a bed full of money! See Jayne in constant heat! See a hefty Jayne run wild on a strange island in nothing but a feather trimmed negligee, a black eye, and extremely bad hair! Just so strange! WOW!

I got this movie on a cheapy double bill (the mind-numbingly awful "SHE DEMONS" is the second feature) DVD. I sought it out just for "DOG EAT DOG", and I was NOT let down (the DVD was ultra cheap anyway...). I just wish someone out there would RESTORE this movie. It's wild and I think it could develop a cult following! NOT for everyone--but take a chance!

Am I the only one more excited about the presence of Dodie Heath than Jayne Mansfield?

This 1960's oddity is a rare blend of pulp noir dialogue at it's worst, crisp B&W cinematography, snappy jazz score, Jayne Mansfield's round, doughy sex cat routine, Cameron Mitchell sweating and slugging people and every heist gone wrong cliché in the book (plus a little Agatha Christie thrown in for a good measure.) My friends and I were howling at the verbal "jousting" throughout the film and it is just loaded with one strange character after another. If you are expecting a well made taut heist film, rent Kubrick's The Killing - but for a fun, cheesy sixties crime crap in a blender - then this one is a hoot. Released in England with the much more subdued title When Strangers Meet, they slapped the Dog Eat Dog title on it in America and Mansfield died tragically in the now legendarily gruesome car accident. In fact Maynsfield is four months pregnant with future actress Law & Order:SVU's Mariska Haggerty (sp?) while filming this crime romp. There are cat fights, pistol whipping, Yugoslovian bartenders endlessly cleaning glasses, washed up madams, bald pimps and Cameron Mitchell bleeds more than any male lead in history (and Tim Roth was in an ENSEMBLE when he did all his marvelous bleeding in Resorvoir Dogs). Jayne Mansfield says a lot of unintentionally bad dialogue but her exclamation of "Crackers!" takes the cake...or the crackers...whatever.

This film begins with Jayne Mansfield rolling about in bed with money all over her. This seems to go on and on and on, as the only reason for the scene is to see this starlet in various states of undress. The film doesn't even pretend to be anything other than an exploitation film at the beginning--and it's obvious they only two things going for the film are hidden under Ms. Mansfield's towel.

This is the story, believe it or not, of "Mr. and Mrs. Smithopolous" staying in a resort in the Mediterranean. Of course these are aliases, as it's Mansfield and her boyfriend. While she rolls in the dough, her man is busy laughing like a hyena while he's killing off his partner in crime. It seems that they have just robbed a shipment of old US dollars that are being returned to the States to be burned and Mansfield's beau doesn't want to split it with his partner. Eventually, the three end up on a supposedly deserted island--which turns out to have several people waiting. There, they wait until the coast clears...and one by one, people in this group start dying off mysteriously.

The plot and action is VERY claustrophobic, as they spend almost all the film on this tiny island and this is bad because the actors are left trying to support the weight of the film. And, considering how bad the actors are, this is a chore they simply aren't up to. Cameron Mitchell basically spends the movie threatening and screaming while Ms. Mansfield does a great imitation of a brain-damaged bimbo (inexplicably, she claimed in real life to be a genius--this film will surely erase all doubts as to her intelligence or lack thereof).

A skimpy plot and lousy acting--it's pretty obvious that this is a grade-C project from start to finish. Why some of the reviewers here on IMDb scored this one so high is beyond me. Stupid and dull.

It is a pity that with badly edited bootleg copies, you no longer can enjoy to the full with the witty social criticism, and the psychological analysis of the characters as the original movie was intended to. Even a poor version (I got mine from the WWW as "Dog Eat Dog") you should not miss Jayne's great performance. She was not under the best directors, the richest producers, with the best casts Hollywood could afford - but she was a major personality, and she shows it everywhere: namely here, in this little, wonderful film - dark, so dark, as Jayne's life was going to be. Notable also for Jayne's only fight scene on a boat, and on the seashore, trying to escape a no-escape island.