cult film freak: DANA ANDREWS AND JEANNE CRAIN BACK FOR 'DUEL IN THE JUNGLE'

DUEL IN THE JUNGLE Year: 1954 Rates: ****

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

Dana Andrews & Delphi Lawrence in Duel in the Jungle

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...

Title card for DUEL IN THE JUNGLE

But in this hat-tipping time-filler, 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: Here's where our hero and heroine bond, and just enough for the British con artist to show his true, lethal colors. Plus sophisticated heavy David Farrar (who also plays his London-based cousin) has 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.