The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968)

Directors:

Charles W. Broun Jr.
Joel Holt
(more)

Writer:

Charles Ross (writer)

Genre:

Comedy | Documentary

Tagline:

Tour the World's Hottest Spots with the Sex Goddess Herself!!

Plot:

Jayne takes us on a review of her last world tour. She takes us through Rome, shares a fantasy about Roman athletes...

Plot Keywords:

Paris France | Beauty Contest | Rome | Nightclub | Stripper

Cast

Jayne Mansfield	...	Herself
Robert Jason	...	Narrator
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Fernand Aubrey
Monte Duro
Lino Enner
Brigitte Halberg
Bob Oliver
Rocky Roberts
Lila Solh
Carolyn De Fonseca	...	Voice of Jayne (uncredited)
Mickey Hargitay Jr.	...	Himself (uncredited)
Mickey Hargitay	...	Himself (uncredited)
Zoltan Hargitay	...	Himself (uncredited)

Directed by
Charles W. Broun Jr.
Joel Holt
Arthur Knight

Writing credits (in alphabetical order)
Charles Ross		writer

Produced by
Charles W. Broun Jr.	....	executive producer
David Puttnam	....	executive producer
Dick Randall	....	producer

Original Music by
Marcello Gigante

Cinematography by
Edwina Brown
Max Glenn
Henry Lange
Claudio Racca

Film Editing by
Mandela Tolena

Art Direction by
Renato DeAngelis

Distributors

• Blue Ribbon Pictures (1968) (USA) (theatrical)
• BijouFlix Releasing (2003) (USA) (DVD)
• Cheapo Films
• Cinépix Film Properties (CFP) (Canada)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (1992) (USA) (VHS)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (2002) (USA) (DVD-R)
• Something Weird Video (SWV) (2003) (USA) (DVD) (special edition)
• Southeastern Pictures Corporation (USA)

Runtime:

99 min

Country:

USA | France | West Germany

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Filming Locations:

Los Angeles, California, USA

Trivia:

Following Mansfield's death in a 1967 auto accident, portions of her narration for this film were recorded by a "sound alike."

Movie Connections:

Featured in Death Scenes 2 (1992) (V)

Watchable first half turns to dull filler in the second

After the death of Mansfield in 1967 this weird piece of film was cobbled together from footage shot years before her death. The idea is that its a record of Jaynes world tour. The trouble is that nothing happens. Jayne and or her body double walks around Europe and America as she visits odd spots like a gay night club or a nudist island. We get a breathless Jayne like imitator speaking about her trips and life in a dumb blonde sort of way.

Worse is the fact that there wasn't enough footage with Jayne to make a movie so sequences are used from several of her films, stills from her Playboy spread and other cheese cake shots. Other sequences were filmed and reaction shots of Jayne were inserted. This is fine for awhile but once the film gets to the halfway point I hit the fast forward since things became duller and duller since it became more clear that this was a greed production.

Of course the kicker and the reason that the film remains in the minds of bad cinema lovers is the last ten minutes. A screech of tires and the camera shakes as get to witness the accident photos of Mansfield death drive. Sure they're black and white but they are ghoulish. More ghoulish is the shots of her ex husband Mickey Hargitay and her sons walking around her home forlornly as news reports of the accident are played on the soundtrack. Where the hell did this left turn come from? This is a rather minor mondo film, that is both less and more interesting in that the one death it has is of its star. But outside of that there isn't much to recommend it, except that there are worse things than the first half of this film.