Mansfield 66/67

Mansfield 66/7 contains a number of interesting contributors (John Waters, Kenneth Anger) and film academics to convey the fascinating, but tragic, life of Janye Mansfield. The documentary covers good ground, with the Anton LaVey sections and footage being particularly insightful (in fact, I would have liked the film to focus much more on the LaVey/Mansfield connection). As such, the US material is compelling (although some unnecessary animated sequences go a bit off track), but the film then bizarrely splices these sequences with dance and 'drama' scenes produced by a group of Leeds-based performance students. While no doubt arty in intent, these sections of the film are distracting, weird, incongrous, shot in a flat cinematic style that jars with the US footage, and are ultimately really quite awful. Why the producers opted for this approach is a mystery, but the UK scenes only serve to undercut the narrative badly. As such, the filmmakers should have replaced them with further or longer relevant interviews and footage that illuminate the life of Jayne Mansfield in the 1966/7 period rather than indulging in telling parts of the tale through interpretative dance, lifeless sketches, and various Leeds folk leaping and capering about in bad blonde wigs.

The straightforward documentary stuff is fine and does a good job illuminating Jayne, but all the little flourishes i.e.) the dance numbers etc are awful and take you right out. It's like watching bad community theatre actors playing dress up and should have been cut right out. That stuff just doesn't work and takes away from the whole.

Pros: The story and discussion therein about Mansfield and LaVey is incredible, especially with this diverse cast of speakers, ranging from in-depth scholars to contemporaries of the period. A great story that deserves to be told.

Cons: While the actual meat of the film is great, the rest is less than stellar. The entirety of the film is interspersed with numerous vignettes, dance sequences, cartoons, and recreations of the events depicted, which range from tone-deaf to absolutely cringe-worthy. It looks cheap, it feels forced, it adds nothing of interest to the film, it's poorly timed and janky, the acting is terrible, the editing is abysmal, the subject matter is often in poor taste, and it ultimately destroys the pacing of an otherwise really entertaining story. I would much rather have more footage of Mansfield and LaVey than watch a bunch of after-school actors in wigs stumble through an improv freestyle dance in an empty studio.

To like or not to like, THAT is the question!

For what this is, it's very good- so I like it, cause it kept me quite enthralled. So, in that sense, this documentary is very likable, but at the same time, it's not a likable story. So, I am torn about "liking" this, but it's like a good horror film.

Jayne's story is one of the most interesting of any Hollywood star, and it's so fascinating the way things happened in her life, giving everything a supernatural, eerie, and frankly, scary quality to it. Hers was a real-life horror story- not the morbid, ugly ones of the nightly news, but the fantastical, creepy, theatrical, macabre kind that all the best movie chillers are made of.

Who knew that a documentary on sex kitten/blonde bombshell Jayne Mansfield would be perfect for the Halloween season?! But it sure is!

Oh, how I wish I had a time machine to go back and save her and the others with her on that fateful night from such horrific ends, but alas.

Anyone interested in movie stars of the 1950s and 1960s may enjoy this, as well as, oddly enough, anyone interested in the occult, theories, and conspiracy.

The creepiness factor is high with this one!

R. I. P., dear Jayne,

That's right; interpretive dancing. Picture the documentary you're expecting, then add a scene where a group of college interpretive dancers 'act out the scene'. If you can handle that, the documentary is what you would expect.