I've had some good experience with Python+Psyco.
Psyco can deliver
excellent performance boosts for tight loops doing simple operations
on numbers and strings, and does a good job with function calls.
Don't forget Pyrex[1] also.. (I abhor Python, but I will give
it a fair shake in arguments such as this).
[1]
http://www.cosc.canterbury.ac.nz/~greg/python/Pyrex/
David A. Desrosiers
desrod(a)gnu-designs.com
http://gnu-designs.com