The Brigham Young University Motion Picture Archive Film Series, part of the L. Tom Perry Special Collections, will show the 1954 action drama, “The Naked Jungle” staring Charlton Heston and Eleanor Parker Friday, March 8, in the Harold B. Lee Library auditorium on level one.
Admission is free, but seating is limited. Children ages 8 and over are welcome. No food or drink is permitted in the auditorium. James D’Arc, curator of the BYU Motion Picture Archive, will introduce the film with behind-the-scenes information.
Before he was the screen’s Moses and Judah Ben-Hur in the blockbuster films “The Ten Commandments” and “Ben-Hur” respectively, Charlton Heston was a contract player for producer Hal Wallis at Paramount Pictures.
“The Naked Jungle” is one of Heston’s more intriguing pictures, playing South American cocoa plantation owner Liningen, who sends for a mail-order bride (Parker), who turns out to be more than he bargained for.
Even as Liningen and his new bride navigate the storminess of the early months of their married life in the mysterious land of the Amazon River, disaster strikes in the form of what the natives call “maribunta,” described as “forty miles of agonizing death.”
The showing, part of the ongoing BYU Motion Picture Archive Film Series, is co-sponsored by L. Tom Perry Special Collections, Friends of the Harold B. Lee Library and Dennis & Linda Gibson.
For more information, contact James D’Arc, (801) 422-6371, james_darc@byu.edu.
Writer: Preston Wittwer
