La loi des tropiques

After just seeing the glorious Constance Bennett at her peak in "What Price Hollywood?" it is sad to see her, at the age of 36, in a B movie, but there you are - welcome to the world of being a middle-aged leading woman in films back in the golden age. She was in good company. In her next film, she would play a supporting role in an A movie that drove 36-year-old Greta Garbo out of Hollywood: Two-Faced Woman.

Bennett at this advanced age (hah!) was still beautiful, but it was hard to tell underneath the fright wig she wore. This improved when she put her hair up later on in the film. She plays a singer who marries Jeffrey Lynn (at age 32, he looks to be much younger than Bennett somehow) in order to escape a detective who's been chasing her. An inventor in a managerial position on a rubber plantation in South America, he wants to bring back a wife, so the two make a deal. Along the way, of course, they fall in love.

This is a pleasant movie, helped by the likability of the key players: Bennett, Lynn, Regis Toomey, and the gorgeous Mona Maris, who plays Toomey's wife. Craig Stevens, then very young and very hunky, has a small part as the owner's son, but he's involved in possibly the best scene, a fight between Lynn and himself.

Bennett deserved better. Shortly before leaving films in 1951, she was honored for her work on behalf of the post-war occupying troops and the Berlin Airlift. In the '50s, she did a club act, returning to movies in 1965, where she looked stunning as John Forsythe's mother in "Madame X." She died shortly afterward. She went out the way she came in.

Good movie with the usual plot. Girl doesn't go with intended (always different reasons) and other girl (in this case Constance Bennett) falls in love (with Jeffrey Lynn). He gets telegram and drinks because of being jilted. But they are all good serviceable actors and the top four in the film are as good as any known star or character actor. So, why do some make "it" and some not so much? It comes down to whether you like them when you see them or not. They catch your eye AND THAT'S IT GENERALLY SPEAKING!!

Only a few years earlier, Warner Brothers made "Oil for the Lamps in China"...and remade it as "Law of the Tropics". Such things were very common for the studio...and they even sometimes made remakes only a couple years later! I loved the first film...what about this remake?

The plots are very, very similar. The only main difference I saw is that the remake was set in South America, not China as well as the film being a little less of an indictment about corporate greed and indifference.

Instead of top actors, however, in the remake they used second-tier ones. Constance Bennett, once a bit star, had a career tailspin...probably, sadly, due to her age. Jeffery Lynn was never a top star but a competent B-movie actor. Despite this, they both did a very nice job and the film is STILL good....just not quite as good as the first one.

Constance Bennett in the 1940s. Her role is an Ann Sheridan-type role. And she looks like part-Benett, part-Jane Wyman, and a good part Lucille Ball. (The penciled-in brows, the full red lips ...) This could not be called a good movie. It holds its own, though. Jeffrey Lynn is good, as he always was. The other female lead, Mona Maris, is very alluring and a good actress.

The plot is silly as can be.

In "What Price Hollywood?" Bennett sang in French. She wove in and out of seats at a cabaret much in the style of Marlene Deitrich in "morocco." In "City Across The Bay," her sister Joan sings a racy song that puts one in mind of Carmen Miranda. Here Bennett sings a song that is partly in Spanish. (The story takes place in South or Central America.) Everyone gives it his or her best. Often that isn't much but it's a hard movie to dislike.

Deep, deep, miserably deep "B". However, Bennett is delightful, as always, and makes the picture worth watching. Also, if you've ever had the urge to beat the crap out of Peter Gunn, there's an OK fight scene that Craig Stevens gets the worst of, and the chick who plays Regis Toomey's wife is a 40's hottie.