Eve ** (1968, Robert Walker Jr, Fred Clark, Herbert Lom, Christopher Lee, Celeste Yarnall) – Classic Movie Review 7656

Director Jeremy Summers’s campy 1968 adventure thriller Eve stars the 24-year-old Celeste Yarnall as the central character Eve, along with Robert Walker Jr, Fred Clark, Herbert Lom, and Christopher Lee. Eve is advertised as ‘The Original Flower Child’, which is how Celeste Yarnall (1944 – 2018) will be remembered.

Eve is a sort of female Tarzan, a bikini clad and barefoot jungle girl worshipped as a goddess by Amazon jungle natives. Adventurer and treasure hunter Mike Yates (Robert Walker Jr) looking for a priceless Inca treasure in the jungle discovers the highly sought after Eve, who is being pursued by a showman for his freak show, by the natives who want to kill her for helping a white man, and by her explorer grandfather Colonel Stuart (Christopher Lee) who wants to silence her.

Yarnall and Walker Jr are good and keep it going, while Lom, Lee and Clark do their best with their limited opportunities, and the movie is OK, though there is a big sag in the middle section before a decent ending.

Robert Lynn and Spanish horror film director Jesus Franco took over when Summers quit midway. Co-produced between Britain, Spain, Liechtenstein and the United States, it is filmed on location in Spain and Brazil.

It is also known as The Face of Eve (UK), Eva en la Selva (Spain), Eve in the Jungle, or Diana, Daughter of the Wilderness.

Also in the cast are Rosenda Monteros as Conchita, Maria Rohm as Anna, Jose Ma Caffarel as José and Ricardo Diaz as Bruno. Monteros is called ‘Pili’ in the original English version and ‘Paula’ in the Spanish dubbed version.

Eve [The Face of Eve (UK)] runs 94 minutes, or 78 minutes (cut), is made by Ada Films, Harold Goldman Associates and Hispamer Films, is shot in Eastmancolor by Manuel Merino, and is scored by Malcolm Lockyer, and the story and screenplay are written by producer Harry Alan Towers (under his regular pseudonym as Peter Welbeck).

Tanya Roberts plays a similar character to Eve in the big budget Sheena (1984).

Celeste Yarnall (July 26, 1944 – October 7, 2018) made her film debut in 1963 in The Nutty Professor, and was spotted by Harry Alan Towers at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival to appear in his film Eve. She went on to co-star with Elvis Presley in Live a Little, Love a Little in 1968 and became a scream queen terrorised by a headless monster in 1971 Beast of Blood.

© Derek Winnert 2018 Classic Movie Review 7656

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