La blonde et les nus de Soho

It needed a two-year wait and a new title for this film to be licensed in American cinemas. Apparently the Soho scene was too much for them, even starring their very own Jayne Mansfield, though it's hard to comprehend the shock-value today.

The film is really just a cliché-mix of nightclub life. Everything is there: leggy showgirls, shady mobsters, spiked drinks, snake-charmer music, sad old men wanting to boast that they'd had their hair ruffled by a stripper. The plot is hard to follow, and the acting mostly very poor, with Leo Genn as the club-owner, utterly failing to carry conviction in the fight-scenes (even though Genn had been a decorated wartime colonel). Even Christopher Lee, as his minder, was stuck with routine dialogue that must have made him wince, though at least he had the right physical presence. In fact, nobody seems to have acted better than Jayne herself, especially as protector of the unknown Barbara Windsor, as the (unconvincing) 16-year old, too eager to work in this forbidden adult atmosphere. Jayne is urging her to quit the job, as she is also urging her lover Genn to do the same - to save his own skin and just nestle against hers, a tempting if lazy option.

Although the film was shot in colour (which I'm not sure it deserved), most available prints are in mono - to me, suitable enough for the essential dreariness of the product. And to think that director Terence Young would soon be identified with some of the most startling creative effects in cinema, in the form of the early Bond movies, even jarring the sensibilities of author Ian Fleming, on whose work they were based.