La loi des tropiques

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.

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.

Jim Conway (Jeffrey Lynn) works on a rubber plantation in the Amazon. He has come up with a new way to process rubber. He's eager to marry his girl Laura and bring her back to the jungle. Instead, he receives a Dear John telegram. He meets singer Joan Madison (Constance Bennett), and tells her his sad story. She is being chased by an unsavory character and she jumps on board his boat. To avoid embarrassment, she pretends to be Laura after marrying him. Secretly, she needs to hide under the assumed name. They get married by the captain and agree to a divorce in three months. Jim is a loyal company man but the company isn't loyal to its men.

This is loosely based on the 1935 movie, Oil for the Lamps of China. This is a B-movie. It's a bit of a jumbo. The acting is fine for a lesser movie. The movie needs something but I'm not sure what. The fist fight is fun but the movie doesn't really elevates.

Constance Bennett, while still slim and lovely, was 36 years old when she made this movie, and while there's nothing wrong about being 36, it doesn't work when your character is supposed to be more like 26. She also looked older than leading man Jeffrey Lynn (which she was, by 4 or 5 years). Her eyebrows weren't drawn in a flattering manner, either. Other than that, it wasn't a bad story...maybe her sister Joan would have been a better choice for the lead. But there are worse ways to spend an hour or so than watching this... The casting of Bennett in the lead just didn't work for me. And I don't get why everyone says the other female lead was so beautiful...she looked hard to me.