Too Hot to Handle

Too Hot to Handle is a low-budget neo-noir British gangster thriller, directed by Terence Young. Christopher Lee has a small role in the film. Too Hot to Handle was Jayne Mansfield's first film away from 20th Century Fox after achieving stardom in the mid 1950s. When the studio didn’t know what to do with their “trouble” stars, they would lend them to foreign productions. Studios made thousands of dollars, while Mansfield only made her regular salary of $2500 a week. This British drama is usually marked as the beginning of her descent into low-budget productions but... actually despite being set almost entirely in a nightclub, it's clearly not a cheapie with a large cast and somewhat lavish production numbers with solid direction from Terence Young, who later did many James Bond films. Notorious in its day because Mansfield's risqué see-through clothing and racy musical numbers that caused some controversy, holding up the American release for two years, while the sexiest frames were fully displayed on Playboy magazine. While filmed and released in Eastman Color, the video and DVD prints were released in black and white.
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