DVD/150: TOO HOT TO HANDLE (Terence Young, 1960)

Only four years after THE GIRL CAN'T HELP IT, Jayne Mansfield's career was slipping when she made TOO HOT TO HANDLE in the UK, a sexy thriller that neither thrills or is sexy.

Herbert Kretzmer's script is as bad as his LES MISERABLES lyrics and director Terence Young was being ironic when he yelled "action".

Johnny Solo runs The Pink Flamingo strip club in Soho with his headline singer Midnight Franklin (!!) and club manager Novak.  Neighbouring strip club owner Diamonds Dielli warns Johnny he has been threatened by an unknown protection gang and Johnny will be next.

Meanwhile a French reporter is writing an artictle on the club but is more interested in a stripper Who Has A Secret.

The strippers are the usual tough broads except 16 year-old 'Pony Tail' who fatally will do anything to 'make it'.  Step forward Barbara Windsor...

Never has Soho seemed so mundane...

Shelf or charity shop?  Living in the DVD limbo of a plastic storage box, I can forgive the bad direction and script, poor Leo Genn's attempt at a tough guy and the interminable badly-lit strip routines for the gloriously camp moment of Jayne Mansfield singing the title song in the famous see-through dress with strategically-placed sequins and tassels. It is the only time she looks fully alive - otherwise she talks in a breathy monotone and doesn't so much act as point her bosoms at people and follow them.  Christopher Lee is his usual dull self as two-timing club manager Novak - this was the same year he co-starred in the other UK so-bad-it's bad film with a strip club melieu BEAT GIRL... now THAT would be some double-bill!  Sadly TOO HOT TO HANDLE is only available in the b/w US release print which is 10 minutes shorter than the original colour UK print which has vanished...