A very platinum Jan Sterling is the eye candy in a tale about a beleaguered police department and the chief (Gary Merrill) trying to boost morale.

The New York Times reviewer almost likes it:

...this modest Allied Artists release, starring Gary Merrill and Jan Sterling, can lay claim, for about two-thirds of the time, to a pair of assets solid enough for big-league citation.One is atmosphere, the break workaday climate of a precinct station house where most of the action takes place. And since the plot has a galvanized squad-room captain cracking a neighborhood crime syndicate, there is ample opportunity to scrutinize behavior on both sides of the law.This tingling authenticity, especially in the squad-room vignettes, stems from the very leanness of Hayes Goetz' productional budget, the generally unfamiliar faces and the blunt dialogue credited to William Sackheim and Daniel Fuchs, Lastly, and most impressively, there is Director Joseph M. Newman, whose smoothly deceptive staging actually lulls the spectator into a feeling of evesdropping. Precious few films do.

Unfortunately, the color of this hard-bitten canvas surpasses its substance. Mr. Merrill's campaign is valiant but predictable, hinging on the inevitable platinum blond cutie, excellently played, as usual, by Jan Sterling. Just as familiar are the captain's hearthside breathers, and the vacuous murmurings of his spouse, Paula Raymond.Graphic? Unquestionably. And Emile Meyer, Regis Toomey, Chuck Connors and most of the other supporting roles are expertly ticked off. Furthermore, for once we get a rather unorthodox façade for evil in Florenz Ames' chilling milquetoast.Alas, none of them, including Mr. Merrill's hero, is particularly intriguing. For all the picturesque puttering and sputtering, "The Human Jungle" lodges unimportantly somewhere between "The Asphalt Jungle" and "Detective Story."