Single Room Furnished (1968)

Single Room Furnished is Jayne Mansfield's last film, and to me it's her best acting. True, this a very low-budget movie, but it's not as bad as most critics say. Jayne plays three roles that are actually the same woman. The first is Johnnie, a young girl who meets Frankie at a high-school dance and soon marries him. They live in a run-down apartment building in the Bronx, the single room furnished of the title. One day Johnnie awakens to find Frankie gone, and she never sees him again. Johnnie colors her blond hair dark and assumes the identity of Mae, who becomes pregnant by a man she meets at her waitressing job. He abandons her, and her life becomes worse. In the last segment, she is Eileen, a prostitute. She returns to her single room furnished to find Billy there. He declares his love for her and wants to marry her. He is a sailor and has run away from his ship, stealing several things as he leaves. He buys Eileen a ring, and Eileen is caught up in her fantasy of her old love. She soon begins laughing at Billy, calling him 'monkey', the childhood nickname he hated. Eileen appears to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown, and continues laughing at Billy until he shoots himself. All of these stories are told by Pop, the caretaker at the apartment building. He tells Maria, a young girl who wants to be just like Eileen, the true story of Johnnie, Mae and Eileen, and Maria realizes Eileen is someone to be pitied, not admired. While there are a lot of scenes that drag and some seem to be added to fill out the length of the movie (Jayne died in a car crash during filming, perhaps that's why) this is still a very watchable movie that shows that Jayne Mansfield did have a good bit of acting ability. It's a shame that she never got to show more of it.