The Adventures of Jane

Low-budget attempt to cash in on the (waning) popularity of the saucy British comic strip is very thin soup indeed. The innocent Jane would repeatedly lose her clothing in the course of her adventures in print but only has her skirt ripped off a couple of times on celluloid due to the censorship rules of the time. The plot, involving diamond smugglers who use Jane as an unsuspecting mule, feels like an afterthought. Carry On regular Peter Butterworth makes an early appearance as an unfunny drunk who mistakenly sleeps with Jane's dachshund, Fritz.

Jane a British comic strip from wartime era, gained a flesh and blood version on theatre on late forties, initially it was planed as series, however it didn't get impact in box-office due it was harden beaten up by the puritan critics, thus stop a first episode, likewise the American Bette Page, somehow this genre didn't get too long quite sure due its period of time of release, on that time the costumers were interested in something spicy, although a massive common decency campaign attached a poorest financial results dropped it for good for our sorrow.

Jane is extremely sexy blonde bombshell, several men fought over its attention, as theatre entertainment, surround by many applicants she is involved in a smuggling diamonds to outside of England, many comic characters came along on the plot, also a beauty contest as well to gets fire the sexy proposition of movie, which has a dog neither to fill out the casting, the actress Christabel Leighton-Porter fill in perfectly the character in plenty physical attributes really bountiful, beauty legs, two front airbags and we must acknowledge, is very bounteous in those sexy sequences when its clothing is ripped off, just accidently of course.

I'm wondering about the lowest rates given by IMDB's members, surely gave by bitters users or something alike, whatever it's plenty fun if we forgot the mismatches, this movie got a color nowadays, which a saw on Youtube, gorgeous print, sadly underrated!!

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First watch: 2023 / How many: 1 / Source: Youtube / Rating: 6.

'Jane' was a very popular comic strip in wartime Britain. Drawn by Norman Pett, it began its long run in the Daily Mirror in 1932 as the misadventures of an innocently sexy young blonde. In 1938, with Don Freeman writing the continuities, 'Jane' gradually became more suggestive and then finally quite lewd. Many of Freeman's gags featured Jane caught in a state of undress ... or caught in some mishap which tore off her clothing. Sometimes the situation would get downright sadistic: I recall one comic strip in which Jane fell through the roof of a caravan but got stuck at waist level, with her skirts outside the caravan ... so that the men inside the vehicle had a fine view of Jane's underpants. The 'joke' in the strip was always secondary to one more excuse for showing Jane stripped to her undergarments or altogether nude. The comic strips in British newspapers were always more explicit than American ones: often, poor Jane would end up entirely naked, or wearing only her knickers ... the angles of Pett's artwork would always show us Jane's nudity whilst strategically concealing the most 'naughty' bits.

In the same way that Little Orphan Annie confided her thoughts to her mongrel Sandy, Jane's intimate confidant was her pet dachschund Fritz (an odd choice of breed and name, considering the anti-German sentiments of wartime).

During the war years, Jane's popularity reached an all-time high among British servicemen. The nearest American equivalent of 'Jane' would be Milton Caniff's character Miss Lace in 'Male Call' ... but, unlike Jane, Miss Lace usually kept her clothes on, and 'Male Call' was available only for servicemen, whereas Jane's nudity was on display in the Daily Mirror for any schoolboy who had the price of a paper.

'Jane' was actually very similar to the Playboy feature 'Little Annie Fanny', in that both comic strips were basically an excuse to depict a sexy woman with her clothes missing. In 1982, when I interviewed Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder at Elder's house in Englewood, New Jersey, I pointed out the similarities between their creation 'Little Annie Fanny' and the earlier 'Jane'. Kurtzman admitted that he was familiar with 'Jane' ... until he saw where the conversation was leading, and then he changed the subject.

Inevitably, many British males wanted to know if Pett's voluptuous creation was based on a real woman. Supposedly, he had used his own wife as his original model. When a theatrical producer decided to mount a stage vehicle based on 'Jane', the role went to Christabel Leighton-Porter, a shapely blond with no real acting experience and no singing ability. The act opened with Miss Leighton-Porter's delightful physique shown in silhouette, then the scrim rose to reveal her attributes while she chanted (not sang): "I'm Jane, Jane: the model, that's plain. I can't sing, I can't even croon. And the dog that I fondle is also a model that you've seen in a famous cartoon." For the stage act, Fritz was played by a stuffed toy (like the cat in a Puss in Boots panto.)

'The Adventures of Jane' is the film version of the stage show based on the comic strip. It suffers from certain problems: Jane's peak years were during the World War, so she's already begun her decline. Also, the story lines in the comic strip were always mere excuses for Jane to lose her clothing in compromising positions and get caught totally naked (or nearly so) in the presence of appreciative men. In 1949 Britain, the film censors were much stricter than the newspaper censors. Consequently, we never see the lovely Miss Leighton-Porter stripped down to nearly the degree of nudity that was a daily event for the newsprint version of Jane.

This film is directed by Alf Goulding, an Australian who had some impressive credits: he had previously worked with Laurel & Hardy and with Roscoe 'Fatty' Arbuckle. Sebastian Cabot, an English actor who had his best successes on American television, plays a small role here. But 'The Adventures of Jane' is lacklustre. I'll rate this movie 3 points out of 10, and one point is in appreciation for Jane inspiring all those brave English servicemen to (dare I say it?) keep their peckers up.

In the United States, there is a stereotype that the British are extremely well mannered and sophisticated. This is in spite of evidence to the contrary which seems to say they can be just as lowbrow and dopey as the rest of us. Sure, they have produced many classic films as well as television shows (such as "Downton Abbey" and "I, Claudius")....but they also have brought the world "The Benny Hill Show" and drivel like "The Adventures of Jane".

So what IS "The Adventures of Jane"? Well, apparently it is a movie based on a comic strip for adults and Jane is apparently very accident prone and always ends up having her clothing ripped off of her! Sophisticated? Hardly! And in the film, it's pretty much what you'd expect, as it's filled with very bad jokes (the sorts you'd expect to hear on stage in a burlesque-type review) and Jane standing about in her underwear.

Overall, this film was too broadly written, acted and directed to be seen as anything other than a bad little curio. Apparently, the plan was originally to make a series of these films but the British public, fortunately, did not embrace the movie and further movies were dropped. It's bad and difficult to watch....trust me on this!

I see the leading lady nearly every day.She was the model for "The Naked Lady" statue which stands near the junction of the A406 and A1 in Henleys Corner North London.I would say that she is a lot more mobile as the statue than she was as the leading lady of this almighty load of rubbish made at Brighton Studios.She simply cant act and so the film is simply amateur theatricals.the story,when it actually gets going is strictly second rate.However we do get to see a young petter Butterworth drunkly get into bed with Fritz the dog,being kissed and thinking he is with Jane.That is probably about the only memorable moment in this truly awful film.