La dame des tropiques

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.