When it comes to crime movies, there are many films that offer thugs and killers as anti-heroes. We know that they’re jerks, but through some combination of good writing and good acting (or, at least, screen presence), we follow their story with interest. We may even develop a pinch of sympathy for them. When (and if) they get their comeuppance, it’s often a tragic scene. A life wasted. A lesson about the wrong path taken. Or maybe it’s a grand moment. A great death for a great character. Guns a’ blazin’. Top o’ the world, Ma.
Then on the opposite end, there are movies like Jungle Street, in which we can’t wait for the little weasel to get caught.
Towheaded, delicate-featured David McCallum is an amateur hood who robs and murders a 65-year-old man in an alley at the very beginning of the film—and he doesn’t get any more likable from there. Crime is the only way he sees out of his sorry life situation. He’s got a low-paying job pumping petrol. He lusts after a woman (a radiant young Jill Ireland) who wants nothing to do with him. He’s constantly berated by his slob father at the breakfast table and lives in your classic British “kitchen sink drama” shabby tenement where the only warmth comes from the teapot.
He’s got no hope. Also, no sense of humor and not much of a brain.
Meanwhile, the film is journeyman B-movie stuff. It makes no great leaps toward a compelling portrait of humanity nor does it burden itself with any memorable style. It would be 100% dreary sludge if it wasn’t set around a London strip club, which means several cheerfully gratuitous strip tease performances, 1961 style. Call them exploitative, I call them some of the few moments here that are enjoyable to watch.