Trade Winds

Several years before anyone thought of the film Trade Winds, director Tay Garnett did a round the world tour and took a camera crew with him. They shot miles of beautiful travelogue type footage and Garnett had it in his mind to use it. According to the Citadel Film Series book The Films of Fredric March, Garnett sold the idea to independent producer Walter Wanger. Who thereupon commissioned a story to be written around these films and naturally it would be starring his wife Joan Bennett. All that background you see in Trade Winds is what Garnett shot years earlier.

Trade Winds is a strange film it can't quite make up its mind to be a mystery, comedy, or drama it truly defies classification. One thing we do know is that right away we're given information regarding the forensics that Joan Bennett is innocent. If she had not run, but stayed behind she'd have known right away and we'd have had no film.

But run she does and private detective Fredric March is put on her trail. He sure needs the money as well as he and secretary Ann Sothern owe a lot of bills.

The weakness of the plot is made up for a lot by the supporting performances of both Ann Sothern and Ralph Bellamy. Sothern is not in the tradition of private eye secretaries like Effie in The Maltese Falcon. She turns out to be just as good a gumshoe as March and she's a person of shifting loyalties.

Which is unlike Ralph Bellamy who might easily qualify for being the dumbest cop the movies ever portrayed. I could have seen him being commandant of the Police Academy forty years later. He's so earnest in such a Dudley Doo-Right manner he's positively hilarious. Sothern and Bellamy really do carry this film.

March is a charming rascal and Bennett a beautiful and vulnerable victim, but if you watch Trade Winds I know you'll enjoy Sothern and Bellamy most of all.

Rich girl Joan Bennett is wanted by the police - it looks like she shot the man who ruined her sister's life. Thinking fast, Bennett drives her car into the San Francisco Bay, dyes her hair, and hops a boat for Hawaii.

The cops call in clever but unpredictable detective Fredric March, who follows Bennett's trail, easily catches up with her - and then instead of arresting her, falls in love with her.

Also involved in the chase is Ralph Bellamy as the detective sent along to assist March - he thinks he's pretty sharp but is always at least one step behind everyone else. Ann Sothern is March's secretary who is supposed to be home minding the shop but steadfastly follows the action wherever it leads, gradually befriending Bennett and then working up a little romance of her own with Bellamy.

The globe trotting story covers lots of territory and includes some fun travelogue-type footage. March and Bennett are both fine in the lead roles, although their inevitable romance is never too surprising. Sothern is outstanding as the unflappable secretary who refuses to be ignored, and Bellamy is hilarious as the super-confident dolt.

The plot is just okay, but enthusiastic performances make this one plenty of fun.

Was there ever a more relaxed, charming rogue than Frederic March? He would have been a perfect James Bond, had the role been available to him in the '30s. As it is, he made do spectacularly with this one: he's Sam Wye, a former SFPD detective, hired to find and bring back the luminous Joan Bennett, who's suspected of murdering Sidney Blackmer... When her car goes into the Bay, she swims ashore and goes on the run... The action roves as the trade winds of the title, straying from the piers of the city by the Bay to Honolulu, Singapore, Tokyo, Hanoi, and Colombo, Ceylon. Ralph Bellamy,side-hick to March, sez: "Colombo? I thought that was in Ohio..." Ann Sothern is glamorous, and Joan Bennett sizzles. This is the movie in which she dyed her hair black -- and then kept it dark for the next 50 years...leaving the blonde Bennett roles to sister Constance. As a glimpse of pre-War Asia, and an insight into the world before terrorism, this is a charming and lovely memory. You'll yearn for the time when cruise attire was more than sweatsuits and sneakers...and all this with dialog by Dorothy Parker!

Detective (March) goes on globe-hopping quest to return suspected murderess (Bennett) to authorities. He's aided by two bumblers (Sothern & Bellamy), at the same time he falls for his attractive quarry.

Not quite a sophisticated comedy, not quite a picaresque chase, not quite a murder mystery- - all add up to a not very good movie. Hard to believe this is from glossy MGM since the production values are nearly incompetent. In fact, I've seen better process shots from a Lash LaRue oater, and since these make up half the movie, you've got to wonder where quality control was.

I'm assuming acerbic wit Dorothy Parker and husband Alan Campbell were hired to furnish sophisticated banter for the two couples. If so, I must have missed it. What I did hear were subtle grammar gaffes from Sothern (e.g. 'whom for 'who') and clever malaprops (e.g. 'deduct' for 'deduce') from Bellamy, intended, I guess, to show their humorous pretensions, but hardly crowd-pleasers.

Also, it looks like Bellamy's buffoonish cop amounts to a typical example of 30's cops when Hollywood treated them as low-comedy relief. And whose idea was it to tack on the last 10-minutes of whodunit that sort of sticks out like a glued on appendage.

Where the movie does work is with the lovely Bennett and the comedically gifted Sothern. Still, it's a bit puzzling why the movie didn't turn out better given the talent involved, including ace producer Walter Wanger. Maybe it has to do with as many as four writers and who knows how many re-writes or with director Garnett's inability to forge a unifying style. But, whatever the reason, the film remains a somewhat unlikely disappointment.

Despite contributions to the script by witty Dorothy Parker, TRADE WINDS is tough going for most of its running time. JOAN BENNETT plays a woman running away from a murder charge who is trailed to exotic locations by FREDRIC MARCH and RALPH BELLAMY, detectives hot on her trail.

March falls in love with her and faces the dilemma of turning her in to the authorities, while Bellamy finds romance with wise-cracking secretary ANN SOTHERN. That's about it, for the plot. The suspense lies in learning when and how the Bennett/March romance will flounder and come to some sort of resolution for the final reel.

Director Tay Garnett makes heavy use of his home movies for all of the process shots used extensively throughout filming. The effects cheapen the images on screen so that never for a moment do you feel that these events are taking place in actual locales, only in front of a process screen full of faded images.

Silliness of the comedy interludes are imposed on any dramatic elements the story has, making for an uneven mixture of comedy and drama.

Joan Bennett's transformation to a stunning brunette changed the course of her career as she goes from blonde to brunette to avoid capture. It's the only interesting aspect of the photoplay for this viewer.

Performances are competent with Sothern and Bellamy vying for attention in some amusing byplay that at least gives some indication of Dorothy Parker's contribution. But generally speaking, the comic moments are strained and appear more foolish than witty. Revelation of the events surrounding Bennett's murder charge strikes a false note for the ending.