This is a really weird little film that should probably be watched in the context of the period but in reality cannot be. Billed as documentary into the seedy side of Soho in the 1960's that was banned outright by the BBFC, I expected quite a hard hitting expose that gets into the world of the hostess and beyond. The truth is that it is nothing of the sort and I doubt it ever was. I don't know the motives of the makers but I'll suggest that they were not strictly coming at this subject from a documentarian point of view. The whole film is played out with what I can only presume are actors and, if not then they are certainly all staged shots. Over this we get a constant narration from a typical "BBC continuity announcer" type and this steady "jaunty" music.
Having already put the idea of a documentary out of my mind, the narration suggested this was going to be a cautionary film for soliciting girls, much like Reefer Madness was for drug use. The narration lays this on thick, making the girls seem dirty ("a girl who could do with a good wash" being one great line) and the men who buy their time in these clubs as idiots throwing their money away. It continues with this but then at the same time it seems to take a certain amount of pleasure in showing the girls in low-cut tops, doing a fan dance and the like. This strange duality hurts the film a great deal because it is too clumsy and conflicted to work as a warning but yet too tame to serve as titillation – even, I'm guessing, for the period.
The only thing that this leaves the film to do is to be a "Reefer Madness" of our period. By this I mean it incredibly dated in its content, style and approach. It is unbearably judgmental and nanny-ish in its tone and the way the voices of the "cast" are narrated on top is laughable. I didn't really get a feel for the scale of the problem (or indeed what the problem was at all) but I did get plenty of amusing moments about how the world has changed. My favourite of these is a reference to the "new status symbol" that brings more prestige than company stationary or anything else – what is it? The credit card! If only they could see us now.
West End Jungle is a dated curio that doesn't deserve the attention it gets from having been banned for as long as it was. It is conflicted in what it is trying to do and ends up doing nothing much of interest or value. Worth a chuckle as a dated piece of nonsense but not anything more than that.
