The Human Jungle

Gary Merrill is the leader in charge of the operation, coming to a station that has let everything down in apathetic hopelessness, in which Merrill stirs everyone up and gets everything done at once. The result is naturally some awful mistakes, which they just bypass and carry on head on with full speed, ready to drive over anyone in the way, risking human lives when necessary. The pace is hot, the action is constantly bolting and getting worse in the end, the final chase is the highlight of the film, and the two ladies don't get much chance of getting heard or noticed in the fury of the manhunts. Gary Merrill is always a guarantee for a film worth watching, but this noir is particularly dark in every way, maybe especially cinematographically. It is a wild rush all the way, you have to hold on to your hat, and when it is all over you don't remember much of what really happened and still try to get some hang of the mess of intrigues. It is a film for noir fans of a more exclusive category, preferring fast action to dialog and characters, and you never get an idea of where all this happened - unless it was just any city.

Gary Merrill is Danforth, a cop turned attorney who is roped into running a tough precinct in "The Human Jungle" from 1954, directed by Joseph M. Newman, also starring Jan Sterling and Chuck Conners.

The precinct known as The Heights is in bad shape: juvenile delinquency, petty crimes, graft, the unsolved murder of a strip-tease dancer, and no effort to clear cold cases.

The department has become lazy. Danforth is asked to take over rather than accepting a job in a law firm. He makes changes that are not popular, putting cops back on beats so they're more visible, and taking a tougher stance with criminals.

In order to solve the murder of Lillian Dean, a prostitute, he questions one of her gentleman callers, Swados (Connors) who works for a petty mobster.

He is alibied by Mary Abbot (Sterling) who works at a crime-ridden club, The Hut. Danforth doesn't believe the alibi. He puts Mary in danger by intimating to Swados that she talked. Can he keep her alive?

Meanwhile, some teens picked up for minor theft claim police brutality- they were actually beat up by the big boss so they could make the claim. And an officer actually shoots an innocent citizen. If Danforth can't get Swados or Mary to talk about what's going on, he's in trouble.

Good B movie, with Jan Sterling giving an excellent performance as a hardboiled stripper. Merrill is an effective tough guy.

Fairly routine, but the performances liven it up. The end takes place in a Pabst Blue Ribbon factory as Mary runs from Swados. It's great.

The premise and the subtext for this screenplay strikes a chord with me in 2005 . The story centres around a tough cop wanting to clean up a violent , crime ridden inner city area of America , so right right away the potential for zero tolerance policing and weeding out apathetic cops and dubious moral justice is there . As I said this strikes a chord with most people in Britain today since the police over here have never been held in such low regard - If you get burgled , mugged etc and phone the police they'll tell you their short of resources and will come to take a statement a week on Thursday but physically defend yourself against criminals because they run riot in streets devoid of police and you'll find the cops have more than enough resources to come and arrest the poor victim who was only trying to defend their life and property . Sorry if I'm digressing a little bit

The problem with THE HUMAN JUNGLE is that the director has made a very stagy film and in many ways it's like watching a theatrical play filmed on celluloid . Not very good actors have been cast and Emile Meyer as police chief Rowan is even more wooden here than in his similar role in RIOT IN CELL BLOCK 11 and the rest of the cast varies from fairly inexpressive to over emphatic . In fact it's difficult to believe this is a movie produced in 1954 because all the time I thought I was watching something produced 20 years earlier

A great noir-crime thriller. Such a great cast of character actors. Regis Toomey (Guys & Dolls), Emile Meyer (countless westerns), James Westerfield (on the Waterfront, Hang 'em High), Chubby Johnson, Chuck Conners (The Rifleman), Claude Akins. But it doesn't take a genius to recognize Merrill's role is almost a mirror image of his wonderful performance in 12 O'Clock High where he got kicked out of his job, replaced by Gregory Peck. In Human Jungle he replaces Westerfield. Leading up to Merrill's promotion and in the immediate aftermath dialogue is almost identical to 12 O'Clock High. The film could be a case study in personality types and leadership styles.

The Human Jungle is a fairly mediocre crime thriller that combines police procedural with noir to limited effect. Clearly made on the cheap (by Allied Artists, the 'high-budget' arm of the – by-then defunct – Poverty Row studio, Monogram) the film is populated with a number of actors who were either never more than second-string or were still in the early stages of their careers. Gary Merrill was as famous for being the toy-boy squeeze of Bette Davis as he was for his acting skills, and in this one he wears a permanent scowl and is nearly always angry – presumably to show the righteousness of his crusade; Lamont Johnson as the police department's hot-head never really cut it as an actor and would find more success as a director. He's OK here, and certainly had the looks to go further, but his character seems to have been inserted for no reason other than to flesh out a short running time. Claude Akins and Chuck Connors, both in the early years of their careers, also appear as a pair of tough guys. Highlight of the film, though, is Jan Sterling as a brassy bottle-blonde, callously used by the cops as bait to catch the villains. In fact, the cast is by far the most interesting thing about this ordinary b-movie.