Dog Eat Dog! (aka When Strangers Meet/Dark Sky Films)
Picture: C+ Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: B-
Jayne Mansfield found herself
in three types of films, big Hollywood comedies, bad low-budget camp projects
and crime thrillers. She is least known
for the latter, but it remains the most interesting and mature of her work and
the way her big screen work began late in the Film Noir era. We previous looked at so-so DVDs of It
takes A Thief (aka The Challenge) and Too Hot To Handle, both
from 1960. Now, a fine new single
version of her last completed film in the crime genre from 1964 called Dog
Eat Dog!
This time, Mansfield is
Darlene, a fun kind of gal who has been hanging around the wrong kind of men,
but one of them has just stolen a fortune in cash bills. The film opens with her throwing the money
in the air and letting it rain on her as she rolls all over the bed
passionately. The fun is soon over when
some of the people on the not-as-secluded-as-it-should-be Mediterranean island
they have run to start to get nosy.
What begins as a particularly
disturbing inquiry slowly grows into more and more problems for all involved
and who can survive while holding on to the cash. For some reason, the film has three directors, but the script When
Strangers Meet author Robert Bloomfield, plus Michael Elkins and Robert
Hill is solid enough to keep the film together and consistent. Though there are aspects of the film that
have not aged well here and there, most of the film holds up very well and is
more proof that Mansfield could have broken the sex symbol mold enough to make
a mark in these kinds of films not unlike the way Joan Crawford became a Film
Noir icon. Though the Noir era had just
ended, Mansfield could have made a unique mark, but she herself would be gone
via a tragic auto accident by 1967 and this was one of those swan song
features.
The rest of the mostly unknown
cast plays it serious, sincere and are effective as a result. Cameron Mitchell is the only other known
star, spending his career in supporting roles over the decades that were always
interesting choices. Some were great,
some interesting like this and some really bad. He even had the occasional lead, like the villain of Nightmare
In Wax. Here, he is on the mark
bringing tension to a situation increasingly disturbing. This comes from some suspense and some of it
from the chemistry between the characters.
Dog Eat Dog! is as effective as many such films today, which is
not bad for a foreign co-production long ago written off as some kind of
B-movie. It can be a B, but a very
entertaining one for certain.
The letterboxed 1.78 X 1 imager
may not be anamorphically enhanced, but it is a really good black and white
transfer for a really good print of the film.
Cinematographer Riccardo Pallottini’s work here is often impressive,
vivid and direct. By this time, black
and white film stock was too sharp, clear and fast to have that Noir look,
while this film has plenty of great location shots. Monochrome film in general at this time was in a nice,
unrecognized golden period and its great the DVD reflects this.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 Mono
sound is also not bad for its age, being an obvious English dub, with questions
as to whether that is Mansfield’s voice or not. The combination is superior to the Koch releases and a few other
bad DVDs of her other work to date, so Mansfield fans in particular have
something to celebrate. Though some of
it is unintentionally funny, most of it plays better than you would think. Extras include two newsreel clips of
Mansfield (one with her husband abroad, the other just after her death), stills
and the U.K. trailer for the film.
- Nicholas Sheffo
