Female Jungle is a 1955 black-and-white film noir directed by Bruno VeSota and starring Kathleen Crowley, Lawrence Tierney, John Carradine and Jayne Mansfield.
The investigation leads him to Candy, an artist's mistress (Mansfield), as well as to a slimy Laura-type gossip columnist (John Carradine) who spent time with the woman that night and becomes the main suspect.
[1] The movie was shown as a double feature with Roger Corman's The Oklahoma Woman in 1956 to ride on Mansfield's popularity which had risen dramatically due to her 20th Century Fox films released at the time.
The film also marked a return to the screen of noir icon Lawrence Tierney, whose off-screen bar brawls and numerous arrests during the 1940s had made him persona non grata in Hollywood.
Its attempts to be hard-boiled fall apart when it becomes apparent that writer Burt Kaiser couldn't get a handle on the plot line, and instead lets the narrative get mired in too much silliness.