Too Hot to Handle (1960)

Released in the U.S. as Playgirl After Dark, this was Jayne Mansfield’s first film away from 20th Century Fox after her star started to dim. The studio loaned her out for this British drama, directed by Terence Young (Dr. NoFrom Russia With LoveThunderball, The Klansman).

While billed as “an exposé of ‘sexy, sordid Soho, England’s greatest shame,” the film may not appear all that scandalous today. But in 1960, Mansfield’s see-through outfits and sexy music numbers kept the movie out of American theaters until puritanical heads cooled. Playboy came to the rescue of horndogs everywhere — I mean, discriminating gentlemen — and showed several shots of the film to build interest.

Mansfield plays nightclub siren Midnight Franklin, who wants her man Johnny Solo  (Leo Genn, Lizard In a Woman’s Skin) out of the business of owning the Pink Flamingo. When an underage dancer named Ponytail (Barbara Windsor, who was in nine Carry On movies) is killed, the cops and the crooks are all over Johnny. One of those underworld types is a very young Christopher Lee.

You can watch this on YouTube.

One thought on “Too Hot to Handle (1960)

  1. Pingback: What’s Up in the Neighborhood, August 15, 2020 – Chuck The Writer

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.