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Certainly two of the most beautiful stars in films were Hedy Lamarr and Robert Taylor, and here they are together in "Lady of the Tropics," a 1939 film directed by Jack Conway.

It's the story of a half-caste named Manon who, as a second class citizen, can't get a passport to leave Saigon. Taylor is a playboy who falls for her; the two marry, incurring the wrath of Manon's sometime boyfriend Delaroch (Joseph Schildkraut).

Made under the Hays code, the ending of the film is obvious and inevitable; also, it closely follows the story of Manon Lescaut, told twice in opera, once by Puccini and once by Massenet. There's a scene from the Puccini version in the film.

The film is beautifully photographed. Lamarr has a lovely, tender quality as Manon, and she is stunning in her Adrian gowns and hats. Taylor has a role similar to his Alfred in Camille, and he does it well, resplendent in his white suit and brilliant smile.

One of the posts suggested Francis Lederer in the role. Lederer was a handsome and wonderful actor, very romantic, and would have brought a more exotic persona to the part. I admit, however, to liking the rugged, earthy, American quality Taylor brings, as the character should be truly out of his element in Saigon. This makes Manon's inability to get a passport all the sadder and more desperate.

Joseph Schildkraut was a master at portraying the kind of evil manipulator he did as Laroch, so while his Oriental makeup is a little disconcerting, his performance isn't.

A lovely film. Too bad about the code.

With a script by Ben Hecht, LADY OF THE TROPICS is a film that recalled another Hedy Lamarr film--at least the title does--called "A Lady Without Passport"--a wretched film she made in 1950. Here too, she's a lady without passport and that's what triggers the entire plot. But it must be said that the comparison between the two films ends with the title.

This is strictly old-fashioned melodrama reeking of either "Manon Lescaut" or "Madame Butterfly", with Hedy as the ill-fated heroine who allows herself to be "used" by Joseph SCHILDKRAUT while hiding her indiscretions from her smitten American admirer (ROBERT TAYLOR), who meets her in French Indochina (Saigon) before WWII and immediately falls in love with her. When Schildkraut gets revenge by planting false evidence of his association with Lamarr to open Taylor's eyes to the truth, the consequences turn tragic.

Hedy has never been more beautiful and gives a sensitive performance as Manon (yes, that's her name!), a "lady of the tropics" with a sultry beauty enhanced by her MGM transformation into a stunning star who is always ready for her close-ups. Attired in an equally stunning Adrian wardrobe, she's a glittering testament to the power of Golden Age films to give stars glamor with a capital "G". Taylor, attired in white linen suits and Panama hats must have made female hearts flutter as the romantic hero willing to sacrifice all for his yen for Manon.

It's a better film than I expected. Joseph SCHILDKRAUT makes a perfect villain, the kind you like to hiss, with his Oriental make-up and oily manner oozing menace at every quiet inflection of his voice. The B&W photography of some artfully designed sets is soothing to the eye and so, of course, is the teaming of Lamarr and Taylor--two of the most photogenic stars on the MGM lot.

The script by Ben Hecht helps sustain interest in the storyline, even if it does get a bit too weepy toward the end. Lamarr shows evidence that she could be a very sympathetic heroine if given half a chance.

I remember when I was living in Vietnam, I was told that Eurasian women were the most beautiful in the World. The French-Vietnamese women that I saw were indeed exquisite. Hedy Lamarr was perfectly caste as one of these women, and her performance in this film was so romantic that one would want to see it over and over.

This fine film featured Oscar-nominated cinematography, a script by the great Ben Hecht (Wuthering Heights, Notorious, The Scoundrel, Underworld), and Robert Taylor as the leading man.

The story is as old as time and you cannot fail to be moved by the tragedy.

Was Ben Hecht a damnable racist, or does it merely seem so? The fact that this frankly racist film doesn't shock our sensibilities maybe due to its not being that much outside of the norm. Hollywood has been called leftist, but no miscegenation is allowed, not even after the war. And all participants in this charade pretend to have creative freedom, or to desire it. This film could well have been called "No Miscegenation!" at a time when someone else in Europe was crying "No Miscegenation!" Congratulations Hollywood!

A group of the yacht set sails into French Indochina at Saigon. American playboy Bill Carey (Robert Taylor) is accompanied by his girlfriend, but he falls for exotic half-caste beauty Manon DeVargnes (Hedy Lamarr). Her second-class status does make it difficult.

Hedy Lamarr may be exotic for old Hollywood, but she has no Asian traits. There is no denying that there is plenty of eastern exoticism, but it feels more Thai than Vietnamese. I don't think anybody would notice back then. I don't like their initial meet-cute. It's a meet, but there's no cute. She's way too cold there. The hat purchase is much better. It's a better cute. There is a few yellow-faced acting, but that's old school Hollywood. There's a good story within this, but the old Hollywood tendencies make it more difficult.

Despite a large budget and the usual MGM gloss, this is not a particularly good movie. Perhaps when it debuted in 1939 people knew nothing of Vietnam--this is the only way I can explain the insane casting of the Viennese Hedy Lamar as a woman who is half Vietnamese! Now if the casting of Austrian-born actress in the lead was the only problem, the movie still could have been interesting. However, the film has many more strikes against it--most notably the very, very limited range of the starlet in this film. Much of the time, she utters her lines as if almost half asleep and had practically no emotion to her performance. Part of this might have been because she was relatively new to America or perhaps she needed better direction. All I know is that she was beautiful to look at but rather vacant.

To make things worse, although she is NOT a rich woman in the film, repeatedly she sports gowns that were right out of Vogue magazine--yet she is supposed to live in Vietnam, not Paris. Now the movie seemed to imply she was possibly a prostitute or a mistress--but even then, it seemed silly to have her traipsing around in one glamorous gown after another in a third world nation. One reviewer faulted the problem with the movie to be Robert Taylor's fault--I think it was all Hedy's.

The bottom line is that aside from saying the film was set in Vietnam, you'd never guess it by watching the film. It is instead a sanitized and ridiculous Vietnam as seen by Hollywood.

As for the plot, it's only okay. In many ways it's a bit reminiscent of Robert Taylor's earlier film, CAMILLE, as both are about fated romances. Most audience members will figure out rather quickly that this romance will not end well! So due to predictability, the plot wasn't able to counteract the lousy casting decisions. While I disliked the film, it seems most other reviews were very positive--so who's to say you may not enjoy it.

By the way, just who or what was Joseph Schildkraut supposed to be in the film?! With his silly fake eyelids and lack of any conventional accent, I was left confused. Again, maybe 1930s Hollywood thought it was okay to say pretty much ANYTHING or ANYONE was Vietnamese--after all, who in the audience at the time would have known differently?

For those who don't realize it the Lady of the Tropics we're referring to is Hedy Lamarr who falls big time for visiting playboy Robert Taylor in Saigon. Of course one look at Hedy Lamarr and his romantic goose is cooked as well. But there's is a forbidden love and sad to say the message in Ben Hecht's screenplay is stick to your own kind.

Lady of the Tropics was shot while Hedy Lamarr was on hiatus from the ill-fated I Take This Woman. Louis B. Mayer nor any of the other movie moguls believed in letting their players sit idly by. So Lady of the Tropics became Lamarr's second film and her only pairing with that other screen beauty Robert Taylor.

Taylor plays a very honorable character here or at least more honorable than most. He's part of a visiting party of tourists off a yacht that lands in Saigon right before World War II starts. As we well know Vietnam was then under that colonial umbrella known as French Indo-China and Saigon was its capital. Among others Taylor is with is his American fiancé Gloria Franklin.

Of course the romantic sparks start the second that Lamarr and Taylor catch sight of each other in that Saigon café. Taylor does an unheard of thing, he breaks it off with Franklin and weds Lamarr post haste.

Sad to say, but implicit is the message that what you do with exotic beauties not 100% Caucasian is bed them don't wed them. But Taylor and Lamarr don't see it that way. As was said by Queen Latifah in the recent Hairspray, they're in for a whole world of stupid.

This was 1939 not 1967 in America. We still had miscegenation laws in most states at the time so the message of sticking to your own kind was in keeping with 1939 mores. This is the exact opposite message the screen would give in 1967 in Guess Who's Coming To Dinner.

Taylor and Lamarr are stunning, no two ways about that. The sets showing tropical Saigon are great and the film did get an Oscar nomination for cinematography. But the story is both melodramatic and thank God, dated.

You can't go wrong watching a film with two of the most beautiful Hollywood actors of the late 30s – Robert Taylor and Hedy Lamarr in "Lady of the Tropics". Not only do we have these physically gorgeous people the photography in this film is exceptional, an d director Jack Conway was always successful when handling as film whose central character was a woman (e.g., Libeled Lady, Red-Headed Woman, The Girl from Missouri).

Some may find the film a bit slow, though the script by Ben Hecht is certainly adequate. But Hecht and Conway were far better in different genres, so the current film never really rises above the line.

Truly I don't understand the poor reviews of this film.

It's a melodramatic romance in the vein of "Camille" or "Waterloo Bridge." (Both of which also starred Robert Taylor). It is certainly no worse than those, and the overall theme is not that much different.

Hedy Lamarr's role here is very subtly played. She lies and deceives because she doesn't want anyone to be hurt. That is key to understanding her character. Placed in an impossible situation, Manon tries her best to rise above it the only way she knows how. Lamarr captures this struggle magnificently. It's written on her face in so many scenes.

Sometimes I've heard she is "wooden" in this role. Are you kidding? In her scenes with evil Delaroch, she masks her agony with a Mona Lisa smile, trying to reveal nothing. That is acting, folks. Sorry you don't recognize it. Perhaps it is because so many stars of the era regularly chewed the scenery, and in comparison, Lamarr's portrayal is too realistic. It's the only thing I can fathom.

As for Robert Taylor, also a favorite of mine...I think he plays the American playboy perfectly. One of my favorite scenes is where he's trying to buy a "hat" for his heiress girlfriend early in the film. He supplies humor in just the right amounts, and his eventual adoration of Manon is well done, hauntingly.

I have seen this movie probably more than any others of hers, and I never get tired of it.

Supposedly set in Saigon, Vietnam, yet the dancing scene at the temple was from Bangkok, Thailand. When Robert Taylor struggles to communicate with a shopkeeper, he tries to make her understand 'god' by saying 'Allah'. Was Hollywood really as stupid as all that, or did it just not give a damn?

Hedy Lamar is pretty, though.

It is not only nonsense, it's very silly nonsense. But rather pretty visually mainly because of Heddy Lamar and Robert Taylor.

It's a typical Hollywood fantasy of the "Orient". The city was supposed to be Saigon but the background, the temple, and the dancers were of Bangkok. And her clothes were not even Asian, they were Moroccan and some outlandish Hollywood creation. But, for Hollywood, anything beyond the white world are interchangeable and we frequently see Vietnamese play Chinese and Chinese play Japanese and vice versa or white people play Asian. Even Marlon Brando couldn't escape such ridiculousness. Time has not changed Hollywood much. Now it's black people popping up everywhere no matter what the story, the genre, or the time and place to continue the silly ridiculous nonsense.

Nominated for 1 "Oscar"? The standard must be very low back then.

I thought Robert Taylor was very good in Waterloo Bridge. Here, however, he just doesn't produce the chemistry the part should have. He isn't really bad, just in this case rather average.

On the other hand, the rapturously beautiful Hedy Lamarr is so perfectly cast in this role. She handles the language accents so well. This film provides an example that those who say yes she was beautiful but couldn't act, that that just doesn't hold water. Her acting here is really quite perfect for the part. The inner conflict of somehow knowing her fate yet dreaming that things could be different comes out in her subtle facial expressions. And of course she looks perfect in the nice dresses and hats. I could see why Bill was trying everything to stay with her and take her away from there. Oh how it is when an American man falls in love with a foreign beauty. See "Act of Love" starring Kirk Douglas if you can.

The other actors did a fine job in this movie as well. And of course the cinematography won a well-deserved award. How I prefer the black and white movies.

This is really an underrated movie with an underrated actress in the lead. I enjoyed it at least as much as her more famous movies. Sure wish Hedy, parts turned down aside, would have played in more top movies.

If there is one downer about this movie, it is rather sad. But the wonderful Hedy Lamarr singlehandedly makes up for it.

You would have thought that with such a good cast this would be a good film. It is actually a poorly scripted film with poor direction. The performances are good, but the characters aren't believable. Hedy Lamarr may have a convincing French accent, but I don't believe that she is half- Chinese. She doesn't look or sound Chinese in any way. If anything, she looks and sounds French. The film fails to explore the whole issue of inter-racial relationships. Instead, it focuses on citizenship and how you can marry to gain citizenship in America. This is a theme that Lamarr would explore more convincingly in 'Come Live With Me' with James Stewart. However, this film comes nowhere near the quality of 'Come Live With Me'.

In Hedy Lamarr's first movie for MGM, she's a half-caste temple dancer in Saigon scheduled to marry rich rubber man Joseph Schildkraut. But broke playboy Robert Taylor sails in on a cruise and they fall in love and get married. This doesn't mean Schildkraut gives up.

Lamarr and Taylor were two of the most beautiful people in Hollywood at this period, and that's what they are called upon to do. The entire MGM apparatus is called on to make this apparent, with sterling compositions and shadow-filled light by George Folsey and Norbert Brodine. Neither lead is called on to do much in the way of acting, which is probably a good thing; Taylor, while a hard worker, was not a great actor, and Miss Lamarr speak every line in a tremulous half-whisper. The script is as unsubtle as to what goes on as could be managed under the Production Code, but I suspect it was known in Culver City as That Was No Lady, That Was My Wife.

Hedy Lamarr was not generally as fortunate in her scripts or her directors as most of the great leading ladies of her day.Yet this now almost forgotten film may ,in fact, be her most perfect vehicle. "Samson and Delilah" appears the only alternative possibility ;still the gentler less garish approach here serves to better accentuate Miss Lamarr's exquisite beauty and muted, perfectly timed, performance.

The part of the half-caste Manon seems written for her (an excellent Ben Hecht script); the photography deserved its Oscar nomination and makes us ask for what do we need technicolor? Furthermore,Lamarr is ably seconded by then newcomer Gloria Franklin as another gentle victim of the Saigon love game.And can Miss Franklin handle a heartbreaking rhythm. Why did America fail to take this delicate chanteuse to its heart?

The main flaw in this work,which otherwise would deserve a nine or ten rating, is the casting of an already hardening Robert Taylor as the enraptured playboy.It is patent,considering the obvious parallels with "Camille, why Taylor was hired. He even goes through some almost identical motions a second time in the death scene here. And that is exactly the problem.Taylor has left romanticism behind him by the time this film was shot. His best notes here are quiet desperation. Francis Lederer would have been great for the role(remember him with Louise Brooks?),but, under the Hollywood casting system ,there was no chance he could have gotten the part.

Flawed as it is, it is flawless Lamarr.And as every romantic believes ,there must still be audiences of unknowing lovers out there who will want to see it again-and again.

Hedy Lamarr, (Manon DeVargnes Carey) was so beautiful in this film and her acting was outstanding along with Robert Taylor, (William Carey). Bill Carey played the role as a playboy with plenty of money and sails to Saigon and meets Manon in a bar and the two of them fall in love with each other once they look into each other eyes. Bill does not know very much about Manon or the fact that she has a lover named Pierre Delaroch, (Joseph Schildkraut) who lives a very shady life and is up to all kinds of tricks. Pierre becomes jealous once he finds out about Manon falling in love with Bill Carey and makes contact with his friends in the government of Saigon in order not to grant her any visas to the United States or Paris, France. Manon is a lady who tells many lies and is really a very sly and tricky lady when it comes to men or anyone. There is plenty of romance in this film and extremely dramatic situations which face these two lovers. If Hedy Lamarr did not star in this film, I am sure Betty Davis would have done a great job, but never as beautiful. Enjoy.