I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

According to the IMDb, apart from the delightful Jack Conway-Clark Gable-Myrna Loy screwball comedy from 1938, there are 5 more movies that go by the name of TOO HOT TO HANDLE. The film under review (retitled PLAYGIRL AFTER DARK in the U.S.) is the would-be steamy noir-ish Jayne Mansfield vehicle made in Britain and co-starring actors who normally are above this sort of thing – Leo Genn, Carl Boehm and Christopher Lee – but which decidedly help in raising it above the rut of contemporaneous quota-quickie gangland thrillers; indeed, Patrick Holt – whom I recently watched in a film from that very ilk, SERENA (1962) – even plays the Police Inspector here! The American "Blonde Bombshell" plays Midnight Franklin, the star attraction of a Soho strip club called "The Pink Flamingo"; suave Genn is her boss whom he affectionately calls "12 O'Clock" and she has feelings for; Boehm (in his second British film) plays an inquisitive journalist reporting on the sordid London nightlife – typically he falls for one of the girls but, surprisingly, it is not the leading lady but gloomy Danik Patisson; and Lee is Novak, Genn's double-faced right-hand man/MC. Another well-known figure (pun intended) that is featured further down in the cast list but whose violent demise plays a pivotal role in the film's climax with respect to the major characters' fate is future "Carry On" star Barbara Windsor.Indeed, the film's unhappy ending – in which most characters show their true (and uglier) colours – is its real trump card…more so than the much-touted "hot" numbers of Miss Mansfield; speaking of which, unfortunately, not only is the print I watched shorn of colour (which is how it is widely available today – probably a disservice to the great Otto Heller's original lensing – and which, arguably, also enhances its ties with the aforementioned sub-genre)…but her two songs are bereft of sound, too!! Luckily enough, the sequences are intact – if still just as monochromatic and chaste – when looked up individually on "You Tube" (which is where I came across the film in the first place) and, apparently, TOO HOT TO HANDLE is available in colour on a German DVD. Incidentally, while the film may have been intended as a dramatic showcase for its shapely star, she had fared much better in Paul Wendkos' debut, the superior noir THE BURGLAR (1957), which I have caught up with just the other day; besides, while it may seem odd that a film originally shot in colour would "exist" solely in a black-and-white print, this is the 10th such instance I have come across in my film collection alone

Low budget but decent crime drama. Jayne, approaching the end of her brief heyday, is pretty good as the sort of den mother to a group of strippers, she even performs a few mediocre numbers. This really shows how the vision of the desirable female form has changed over the years. Nowadays the lithe hard body look is the goal but Jayne is anything but that, very curvy and quite plump she is harshly lit as is the film but even with that at times she looks stunning. The plot takes a while to get going and really isn't focused sharply enough to make the film as involving as it should be but Leo Genn is good in the lead and he and Jayne hold your interest whenever they are on screen.

The dance numbers with Jane Mansfield were the main draw of this show, and we don't get to see the bareness of her outfits in black and white. It's too bad foreign films where this was in color are still made without any English dialog on DVD. The subplots that made the backdrop of this story are interesting, but Mansfield's part wears out while she acts out as a mother figure to Johnny, the nightclub owner, warning him not to use his gun against a rival club across the street that's blackmailing him. Then she's mom to an underage girl, attempting to keep her from going to a fatal date with a villainous club investor. The supporting characters like Christopher Lee as the host and the various strippers help break up the monotony of her "don't do this" speeches. Koch Vision had a color version but I don't know why no one has it now.

What a shocker! Who knew that Jayne Mansfield could actually pull off a role that required some real acting? No, she's no threat to knock Ingrid Bergman off of anyone's top actress list, but she's surprisingly good in Too Hot to Handle. It's quite a change of pace from her roles that I'm more familiar with. Mansfield is definitely much more than the blond sex-kitten I had thought.The other "names" in the cast are Leo Genn and Christopher Lee. Genn is his usual solid self. In fact, I can't remember seeing Genn in anything where he wasn't solid. It's a shame this man isn't better known by the general public. Being something of a Christopher Lee completist, Lee is the reason I wanted to see Too Hot to Handle in the first place. But other than introducing a few dancers, he really doesn't do much.As for the movie, it's a total melodrama with one cliché after the next. It may be listed as "Crime" on IMDb, but the crime elements have very little to do with the actual plot. And, it's dull. Who would have thought that a movie with Jayne Mansfield working in a strip club could be so boring. I didn't care if Genn lost his club. I didn't care if Mansfield got her man. I didn't care if there was an underage girl working in the club. I didn't care about any of it. All I wanted was for the thing to end.There's a sub-plot in the movie involving a dancer who is in the country illegally and the writer who falls for and wants to help her. Their story is the most interesting thing in the movie and keeps me from rating the movie any lower. Unfortunately, this sub-plot goes nowhere.