This is a just watchable crime film starring the then husband and wife team, David McCallum and Jill Ireland. Ireland is a stripper in a low-rent peeler bar in London. McCallum is the club's go-fer who has eyes for Ireland. Needing some extra cash to try and impress Ireland he pulls a roll job in a dark alley. However, he was a bit heavy with the violence and the victim dies. One of the clubs members, Brian Weske, puts two and two together and does a bit of blackmail. McCallum now decides he needs a big score to get out from under the blackmail. He enlists the help of just released convict, Ken Cope. They plan to hit the safe after a good weekend. Needless to say everything falls to pieces and McCallum ends up killing another man before the cops grab him. Film needed to lose 10-15 minutes of dead time in-order to quicken up the pace. Ireland does a nice bit as the stripper with a less than golden heart. Not good, but by no means a total waste of time.
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gordonl5626 December 2007
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Leofwine_draca31 August 2016JUNGLE STREET is a low rent British crime film from prolific director Charles Saunders. It has a fair share of problems but nonetheless works thanks to some strong acting from the leads and the narrative itself, which is a fun mish-mash of timely themes and the occasional bit of suspense.
The film incorporates some of the burgeoning 'kitchen sink' drama genre into its running time in its depiction of the home life of youthful tearaway David McCallum, a man who despises his family and his whole class and wants to make something better for himself. This means turning to crime to make ends meet, and you can guess how that ends up. Like a lot of low budget British crime films, much of the action centres around a nightclub, or rather a strip club in this instance.
This is where much of the padding comes into it. The first half of the film in particular is full of tame striptease sequences which show no nudity but are nonetheless quite racy at times. They go on forever and they parade many attractive actresses around which is no bad thing really, particularly when the chief stripper is the young and lovely Jill Ireland, a really arresting presence here.
The plot is further complicated by police investigation and the release from jail of a seasoned criminal, played with relish by Kenneth Cope. Cope and McCallum have some good scenes together which makes the story work. There's an inevitable heist sequence which is well directed and an effective climax. No classic, but more than watchable for what it is. -
trevorwomble1 February 2021This is a taut if predictable little film starring a pre-stardom David McCallum and Jill Ireland and a young Kenneth Cope ten years before he would gain fame in 'Randall & Hopkirk (deceased)'.
The story, of a low life criminal (McCallum) getting his comeuppance through his own fault and some solid police work has been done before, notably in the vastly superior 'The Blue Lamp' a decade previously. However, despite the low budget and sometimes hackneyed dialogue, it is still a watchable little film. It's certainly fun to see McCallum portray a baddie for once, although I must admit he does feel slightly miscast. Jill Ireland doesn't have a massive amount to do other than look pretty and scream a lot at the end but she still does it well.
This film now feels hugely dated but it's still quite watchable and certainly enjoyable despite it's flaws. -
boblipton6 June 2020Four years before becoming a man from UNCLE, David McCallum is a punk in London. His father spends most of his paycheck on beer, and so McCallum has taken to mugging old ladies. Now, however, he's killed one, and the police are looking for him. Add in stripper Jill Ireland, and her boyfriend just come back in a stay in prison for a job he had pulled with McCallum, and suddenly Dave is looking to get out of town.... but he's purely a city creature.
There's clearly a liberal edge to this movie, as McCallum's vicious nature can be attributed to a bad environment, rote uncaring parents and bad companions. yet in order to make that point, there needs to be some sign of possible reform, and director Charles Saunders is more interested in showing us the censor-compliant strippers at the local grindhouse; McCallum is a lost cause, vicious and blaming his bad choices on everyone except himself. With no reason to sympathize with this marauding creature, why should anyone care what happens to him? -
naseby13 March 2015Not entirely awful, but not entirely good either, Mainly, if you're a fan of the British film-noir crime genre of course. David McCallum, a brooding, vicious, little villain decides to kill for money. Enter his old chum Kenneth Cope, fresh out of prison as the mate wanting his cut from another job they did yet HE went inside for. McCallum talks his chum into that 'one last job'at the strip club he frequents, having sized-up the Boss's takings from the office safe even though Cope's five minutes out of prison. But can McCallum ride his luck and stop at killing? Nope - he carries on, basically. That's about it and of course, as no-one in those days in British cinema at least was allowed to be seen to be getting away with crime, (until after 1970 I believe?). That's about it as I say, he gets his in the end. Set among the world of a strip club in typical 50s/60s style of Brylcreem, cigarettes and bad jazz music complete with cymbals at the drum kit,(oh and London smog) the script is pretty ordinary and does drag in a few places. It has its 'kitchen-sink' atmosphere, arguing with his dad, but he is a villain so it's not surprising. However, it has just enough to hold you as another one for the wet Saturday/Sunday afternoon slot when you haven't anything to do. It IS, interestingly worth seeing alone perhaps for McCallum playing an out-of-character villain, with a cockney accent of sorts, something not seen a lot of in his career, the only other one offhand I can think of for him was 'Violent Playground'. Although Cope's played 'wrong-uns' he plays a good role as just that. Worth also of note, McCallum's then-wife Jill Ireland starring as the 'girl in the picture'. Pretty lame ending but the one you couldn't do much with, well, they couldn't here!
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jamesraeburn200321 December 2016A young juvenile delinquent at war with his folks, his bosses and the world at large mugs and kills an elderly blind man. Meanwhile, his friend who took the rap for a robbery they did together Johhny (Kenneth Cope), is released from Wormwood Scrubs and wants his share of the proceeds. Johnny, naturally, has spent it so to pay off his friend they rob £1000 from the safe at the Adam and Eve club. More trouble brews for Terry when Joe Lucas (Ian Weske)knows that he did the murder and blackmails him to keep quiet. Terry double crosses Johnny, hooks it with the money and flees to the flat where Adam and Eve club dancer and Johnny's girlfriend, Sue (Jill Ireland), lives. However, tipped off, the police arrive and surround the place and, in desperation, Terry holds both Sue and an elderly tailor hostage in the flat and tragedy strikes...
Made only a few years before McCallam (here appearing with his then wife Jill Ireland) shot to fame as Illya Kuriyakin in the hit Man From UNCLE spy series; he looks uncomfortably cast here as small time teenage thug Terry Collins. In addition, the film's attempt to be a gritty, hard hitting study about Soho low life is almost sunk by the laughably bad Adam and Eve club scenes: a young lady billed as Dimples, for example, singing a terrible number called I'm Only A Girl complete with really bad dancing. On the musical side of things, the Shadows styled instrumental theme tune (Harold Geller) fits in better with what the film aspires to be. Charles Saunders' direction, while not exactly inspiring, is pacy and efficient and Jimmy Harvey's documentary style b/w cinematography lends the sets such as the Adam and Eve club's seedy interior and the terraced house where Collins lives including its kitchen with its awful fried breakfasts a genuine sense of authenticity.
Despite its attempts to be gritty and hard hitting falling flat, we can enjoy Jungle Street (aka Jungle Street Girls) as an enjoyable film of its period - the early sixties - that always looked great in these films and a nostalgic reminder of a genteel era of British movie making that has long since gone. Fans of The Man From UNCLE I am sure will want to check this out for an early David McCallam role even if it is a part in which he looks miscast somewhat. -
malcolmgsw24 March 2014This film is mainly set in a striptease club where none of the girls actually take off more than a pair of shoes.All rather tame.Having already killed a man in a street robbery Mccallum teams up with Cope ,just out of jail to rob the club.Mccallum wants all the money for himself and lays out Cope.Rather a silly thing to do bearing in mind that Cope had previously covered up Mccallum's involvement in a prior robbery.The caretaker raises the alarm.Mccallum takes Ireland hostage in her flat.A tailor in the next door office tries to disarm him and is shot and killed.Mccallum is caught by the police and takes him off for his date with the hangman.All rather poverty stricken,padded out with some truly hopeless acts at the club.I wonder if there was a "continental"version of this film.Might have been more interesting.
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After having met and married after working together in HELL DRIVERS where they were basically glorified cameos, three years later David McCallum and Jill Ireland - as an aimless still at home loser hanging around a strip joint to catch that joint's top stripper -- actually starred in another B&W British flick that's far superior: a heist thriller that takes an entire film to reach that heist with creative twisty avenues, and our two stars aren't alone...
The third lead in the triangle is freshly-sprung convict Kenneth Cope, a handsome and experienced lad with a romantic background with Ireland (one scene as he charmingly converses with McCallum's kitchen sink mother is a standout); he also wants payback from former partner McCallum, who didn't get caught from what landed him in prison...
Meanwhile, Ireland's Sue is the obsessed apple of McCallum's wormy eye, and he has such comfortable means around the place -- constantly fixing the car of the club's pushy and obese owner, also smitten with the otherwise old fashion/idealistic Ireland -- and it's through McCallum's primary perspective the audience experiences this seedy locale, from the theater stage to random dressing rooms and offices, like really being there...
Where the JUNGLE STREET GIRLS acts are not just in the background but right up front, interweaving throughout the dialogue, almost like a documentary or expose, including CIRCUS OF HORROR blonde bombshell Vanda Hudson while the prettiest, Marian Collins, is the announcer/MC...
So when the 11th hour safe-cracking occurs it's well after McCallum had been slowly cornered by surrounding cops, investigating the film's opening robbery of an old man that unintentionally turned to murder, and perhaps the best, most memorable character is indeed a character, straight from a classic Cagney/Bogart flick...
Enter Brian Weske's Joe Lucas as smarmy yet likeable hypochondriac Joe Lucas, also the most crookedly professional, having figured out who did the initial killing that everyone, including him, is being questioned for...
So as he darts in and out from random scene to scene, there's a palpable sense of Noirish criminal ambiguity that fits both the location and multilayered plotline -- one that needs more than one viewing to catch and thoroughly appreciate everything. -
dave-76-4906156 August 2020We all know that Ducky looks like a young Illya Kuryakin. But see this picture just to see an even younger Illya who speaks with a Cockny accent.
There are other reviews which summarize the picture better than I could. I will say this though. The Adam and Eve club is supposed to be a low class, low money, dive. It can't afford good acts. That's why the girls acts are bad. -
marklilley-6241127 June 2021I enjoyed this short, British B film, though David McCallum as ever comes across as a bit too small to be a villain.
The high point of the film is fairly early on, when the gorgeous Jill Ireland as the star stripper , takes to the stage and strips down to her stockings, basque and heels.
The rest of the film is entertaining enough and shows views and lifestyles in London that have long since disappeared.
Good stuff!