La foudre d'en bas

It's the steamy jungle, where Charles Bickford returns from wherever he's been to wife Tallulah Bankhead and best friend Paul Lukas. He's going blind, so he puts on dark glasses and turns into a grouch. This convinces Lukas to end his affair with Miss Bankhead, who takes up with Ralph Forbes.

A well made precode movie should show people behaving on screen as they do in real life when blue stockings aren't watching, and this one certainly qualifies, I suppose, but not in any way that made me think this had any real dramatic purpose. Lukas decides to stop sleeping with his best friend's wife because of pity, and Miss Bankhead decides to have an affair with Ralph Forbes because he's the only White man under three hundred pounds with a full head of hair who isn't her husband.

The wrangling between Eugene Pallette and James Finlayson adds a few moments of humor to this movie, as do some early moving shots by cinematographer Charles Lang. However, given the lack of anyone to root for in this movie, I am not about to cheer when they reluctantly decide to do the right thing because the wrong thing isn't working. That's realistic, I suppose, but not terribly interesting.

This reminded me of Howard Hawks' ONLY ANGELS HAVE WINGS inasmuch that we have an isolated group of rough and ready alpha males dealing with the presence of a female. It is however not even a fraction as good....but it has got Laurel and Hardy's James Finlayson!

Considering that we're in the jungle with very impressive and atmospheric fluid cinematography, it manages to feel very still and stagnant. Considering that we've got one of the most emotionally engaging actresses and indeed sexiest women Hollywood has ever seen, it's not easy to make any connection with her or any of the characters. Even the amazing Tallulah herself admitted that this was a dull and boring picture.

The problem is everything happens so slowly. Director Richard Wallace (not a name you'll know for reasons obvious from watching this) seems to think that by leaving long gaps after someone's said or done something 'interesting' we will savour those words and cogitate on them but in reality it just makes the whole thing horribly drawn out.

Although Tallulah Bankhead said herself that she only did her brief Hollywood stint to get lots of money and lots of sex, she did actually make some really fantastic films. This was definitely not one of them.

If you liked Devil and the Deep, in which Tallulah Bankhead cheats on her husband, you might like to see her in the same year's Thunder Below, in which she does the same thing. If you liked White Woman, in which Charles Bickford words on a plantation in the African jungles and seduces the boss's bored wife, you might like the change of pace in Thunder Below; Charlie plays the undesirable husband this time around.

I know, it doesn't make any sense. If you're married to Charles Bickford, why would you want to have an affair with Paul Lukas? He's sexy and virile, a great contrast to the meek intellectual Paul. After returning home from a trip out in the marshes, Charlie wants a little alone time with his wife Tallulah. She finds him too dirty, and after grumbling, "After nine years of marriage, you should be glad your husband still wants to muss you up," he agrees to take a bath. Tallulah takes that opportunity to canoodle with Paul in the library.

If you think the movie doesn't make any sense already, it only gets worse. Charlie starts stumbling around, a clear indication that there's something wrong with his health. Does Tallulah step up to the plate and assume her wifely duties? Nope: she'd rather complain about her sick husband and continue to have an affair with his pal. Really, is it such a terrible life to live in a beautiful house with a husband who adores you and feels sorry for being a burden, when he's not too much of a burden and can still keep up his husbandly duties? I think she's an idiot, but that's the story. I'd take Charles Bickford any day, with or without the stumbling.

Walt (Charles Bickford) is in a rush to get home to his wife Susan (Tallulah Bankhead in a South American jungle village he's managing for an oil company. She's been making time with his wartime foe now best pal Ken (Paul Lukas). Sue and Ken plan to split but when they find out Walt is going blind Ken refuses to abandon him at least until he gets on his feet.

The stagey Bankhead is unconvincing and overwrought most of the way. Bickford is abrasive and unsympathetic, Lukas a Lugosi like weakling along with a supporting cast not worth mentioning. Richard Wallace's direction and the film's overall look offers little as the strident Tallulah has to deal with the spineless Lukas, the films most redeeming feature her response to her desperation. It just not worth waiting around for.

The title ostensibly refers to the film's setting, which takes place below the equator, but more aptly describes the thunder below the belt of the principal cast members -- with a veritable tsunami raging in leading lady Tallulah Bankhead's nether regions.

In all six of her 1931-32 films, Bankhead played unhappy wives in exotic locales who often fell victim to a malady common to pre-Code heroines stuck in steamy surroundings: the Triple 'H' Bug (as in Horny Humid Housewife). In THUNDER BELOW, a particularly lurid entry in the tropical scorcher sweepstakes, Tallulah sins, suffers, and sweats oh so chicly, sometimes all at once.

Set in Central America, the story revolves around Bankhead's marriage to Charles Bickford, an oil rigger, who never suspects that she's actually in love with his best friend, Paul Lukas. But when passions reach a fever pitch, Tallulah becomes so wracked with guilt that she runs off with a third man (Ralph Forbes), leaving her broken-hearted husband and lover to join up in a quest to hunt her down. Needless to say, all roads lead to hell.

Melodramatic with a capital 'M' writ large in bold, capital letters, the heavy-breathing hokum is made compelling by arresting production design and cinematography -- the pre-Code Paramount signature look -- and restrained, persuasive performances by Tallulah and her swains.

All this, plus comic relief by the great Jimmy Finlayson sans mustache and the portly Eugene Pallette, who even gets to do a horizontal mambo with a barroom tart. Where is the Legion of Decency when you really need them?