The Beauty Jungle

The Beauty Jungle (also known as Contest Girl) is a 1964 British film directed by Val Guest.

The Beauty Jungle
Film Poster
Directed byVal Guest
Produced byVal Guest
Written byVal Guest
Robert Muller
StarringIan Hendry
Janette Scott
Edmund Purdom
Music byLaurie Johnson
CinematographyArthur Grant
Edited byBill Lenny
Distributed byThe Rank Organization (United Kingdom)
Continental Distributing (United States)
Release date
25 August 1964 (1964-08-25)
Running time
110 minutes
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish

Plot

Shirley lives in Bristol. While on a seaside holiday at Butlins holiday camp a young typist Shirley Freeman (Janette Scott) is persuaded by a local journalist Don MacKenzie (Ian Hendry) to enter a beauty contest. When she wins, she decides to give up her previous career and life and take up entering beauty contests full-time. Her parents disown her.

Shirley comes second in a heat for the "Rose of England" contest, but her friend points out to the judges that the winner has not followed the rules and she is disqualified so Shirley wins by default, winning £300 and a trip to Monte Carlo. They enjoy the trip together, but Don changes the booking at the hotel from two single rooms to one double room. Whilst in Monte Carlo she enters yet another beauty contest, "Miss Trapeze", this is a chaotic contest set in a circus, but nevertheless she wins, winning 500NF. The contest orgamisers Mr Carrick and Mr Armand invite them to dinner.

Returning to Britain she does a photo-shoot in Torquay with photographer Walter Carey (Ronald Fraser). She then enters the final of "Miss Rose of England" and wins, winning £1000.

She is then entered as "Miss England" in the "Miss Globe" contest held on the Cote d'Azur. Here Don has to stay at a different hotel and Shirley has to share a hotel room with Miss Peru, but she comes only 6th despite naively sleeping with one of the male judges the night before the contest. Disillusioned with the beauty profession she stops entering beauty contests completely.

Later on, after being required as reigning champion to judge a beauty contest in the UK, she sees that her younger sister Elaine (Janina Faye) has entered the contest and just immediately walks away completely from the beauty profession and all of its hypocrisy and sordid publicity stunts.

Cast

Production

Much of the early footage in the film was shot at Weston-super-Mare (including the now-demolished lido), Butlins Bognor Regis[2] and the Redcliffe area of Bristol.[3]

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gollark: > flat tax> regressive tax
gollark: That sounds nice, though there'll inevitably be other taxes tacked on top.
gollark: ... isn't that actually quite significant?
gollark: I don't think you can blame just *one* factor like contractors for government inefficiency.

References

 
Director Guest had planned a movie on beauty contests back in the 1940s (PICTUREGOER magazine;15.10.1949;p6)
  1. "Official Website of Ian Hendry". Retrieved 6 July 2013.
  2. "IMDB". Retrieved 29 August 2017.
  3. http://www.reelstreets.com/index.php/reelstreets-films?task=view&id=57&film_ref=beauty_jungle,_the_-_orphan
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