cult film freak: DAVID MCCALLUM, BRIAN WESKE & JILL IRELAND IN 'JUNGLE STREET'

David McCallum and Gillian Watt with Anne Scott in JUNGLE STREET aka JUNGLE STREET GIRLS Year: 1960

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...

Marian Collins in JUNGLE STREET aka JUNGLE STREET GIRLS

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...

Brian Weske pulling a passive-aggressive blackmail in JUNGLE STREET Rating: ****1/2

So when the 11th hour safe-cracking occurs it's well after McCallum had been slowly cornered by surrounding cops, investigating the film's rudimentary/central 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.