In 1954, Charlton Heston was still riding high off of the success of 1952's Best Picture winner, The Greatest Show on Earth but he wasn't a major star yet. By then, he was mainly cast as a rugged adventurer type, still a couple of years away from becoming the epic movie icon we know of today. One of those adventure movies, The Naked Jungle (1954), from the same team that scored massive success the previous year with The War of the Worlds, helped cement his stardom and even turned him into something of a romantic lead.

The Naked Jungle opens telling us the action takes place "somewhere in South America." It begins when the beautiful and sophisticated Joanna Leiningen (Eleanor Parker) makes her way down the Amazon River (presumably as it's never stated) on her way to meet her new husband, Christopher Leiningen (Charlton Heston). He's the owner of a cocoa plantation and has arranged for a marriage after 15 years in the jungle so he could leave behind a legacy. The two were married by proxy and have never met.

Joanna is accompanied by the area commissioner, played by William Conrad and when she finally meets up with Christopher, he's none too happy about it. He was looking for a woman to be a servile wife and Joanna is intelligent, witty, talented, and independent. She's also beautiful and Christopher can't believe someone like her could ever be a mail-order bride. He's right, as it turns out. She volunteered when his brother asked her for advice on a bride for Christopher. It further turns out she's a widow, to Christopher's dismay, and he a virgin. No, he doesn't actually use that word but he makes it more than clear he's never been with a woman and he was expecting the wife he got to have never been with another man.

This brings on many awkward moments for the characters, and many cringingly sexist moments for the modern day audience. Christopher can't help but imply, rather bluntly, that a widow is a used up woman. In one humorous, innuendo-filled scene, he tells her the grand piano he bought for her to play had never been used and that's what makes it special. She replies that anyone who knows music knows a piano is better if it's been played and fine-tuned. The two agree to part ways only to have nature intervene in the form of millions of army ants, herding towards his cocoa plantation and spelling sure disaster for everything he's worked for.

The Naked Jungle saves the army ants for the end but that, of course, is why everyone went to see it in the first place. No one goes to see a movie like this for the romance. They see it for the ant attack and director Byron Haskin and producer George Pal make damn sure the climax pays off. The audience gets to see men eaten alive by ants, ants devouring field after field of cocoa, explosions, massive floods, and Charlton Heston heroically saving the day. Haskin and Pal were old hands at such things by this point. They had worked together on the aforementioned The War of the Worlds and knew how to please a crowd when it came to a special effects spectacle. It was in the romance department, and the cultural sensitivity department, that they didn't exactly earn top honors.

There are a few unfortunate scenes in the movie that deride native South American cultures (though since they refuse to name the country, we can't be sure which ones) as primitive and savage. In one scene, Christopher calls over one of his men and points out that he is the most civilized and intelligent of the bunch. Christopher then asks him to show Joanna his "treasure" which turns out to be a shrunken head. He remarks that even though his ancestors were Mayan, who had achieved so much scientifically, they spent too long in the jungle and, it's implied, went simple in the head. Ugh.

Which leaves the ants and, technically, they didn't get that part right either but if they had, there wouldn't have been much of a movie. Army ants, or the Marabunta, are known for their aggressive foraging in which they can form impressively long chains of ants, stirring up small animals and insects in the process. When they forage, villages simply corral them through town, houses, and public spaces until the process is complete. Don't tell the Leiningens. Of course, that wouldn't make for a very exciting climax so the ants of The Naked Jungle don't just relocate, they destroy everything they can and require burning and flooding everything in their path just to stop them.

The Naked Jungle, along with another adventure movie that year, Secret of the Incas, cemented Heston's status as an adventure star and in a couple of years, with his role as Moses in The Ten Commandments, his legend would be secured. Byron Haskin and George Pal would work together again on The Conquest of Space (1955), but never matched the success of their earlier works. Eleanor Parker would continue her prolific career, culminating in her most famous role, that of the Baroness in The Sound of Music in 1965. And The Naked Jungle would forever instill in the minds of people that army ants swarming are an unstoppable mass of destruction that requires Heston and lots of dynamite to save the day.

Director: Byron Haskin
Producer: George Pal
Writer: Ben Maddow and Ranald MacDougall
Music: Daniele Amfitheatrof
Cinematography: Ernest Laszlo
Editing: Everett Douglas
Art Direction: Franz Bachelin and Hal Pereira
Costume Design: Edith Head
Cast: Eleanor Parker (Joanna Leiningen), Charlton Heston (Christopher Leiningen), Abraham Sofaer (Incacha), William Conrad (Commissioner), Romo Vincent (Boat Captain), Douglas Fowley (Medicine Man), John Dierkes (Gruber), Leonard Strong (Kutina), Norma Calderón (Zala).
C-96m.

By Greg Ferrara