The Naked Jungle

South America, 1901. Christopher Leiningen, hard-tempered owner of a cocoa plantation, marries a woman he has never met by correspondence. The marriage cracks on her first day. Then the marabunta appears on the horizon: an army-ant column that eats everything in its path. Byron Haskin directed, George Pal produced. Charlton Heston plays Leiningen, Eleanor Parker plays Joanna. The source is Carl Stephenson's story Leiningen Versus the Ants, broadcast repeatedly as a radio play and familiar to generations of American listeners. The interesting thing is that it carries two films in one body. The first half is a marriage drama, the second a straight disaster picture. The ant sequences were built from real ants, miniature sets and magnified footage. Heston's character is written unlikeable on purpose; his contempt for his wife is the actual problem the story has to solve. Who it is for: fans of fifties studio adventure and early disaster cinema. Who it is not for: anyone with no patience for the period's view of women.