Panama Lady (1939) User Reviews

The kind of solid "Programmer" the studios did best

[eschetic-2 · 6/10 · 29 November 2010]

Back in the pre-TV days when the major Hollywood studios were allowed to own chains of theatres across the country to show the films they made and profit from both sides of the business, they had to keep those houses booked and so churned out a steady stream of "programmers" to fill their screens between the major "prestige" releases. Running between 60 and 90 minutes (the equivalent of TV shows today), these films were more than training grounds for later star performer and directors, they frequently provided quality work for studio people between "A List" projects. The quality varied with the studio, but RKO-Radio was one of the best and PANAMA LADY is much better than some suggest. Any fan of Lucille Ball's work should mark it as a "must see." It will strongly remind them of her better known dramatic work for director John Farrow in her next film the same year, FIVE CAME BACK.

A product of an era when the words of a screenplay mattered more than the explosions and silly chase scenes, PANAMA LADY (an RKO-Radio release now available mainly in a good print on a long out-of-print 1983 VHS release - #7001 - of a 1955 "C&C Movies for Television" print), was an above average reputed remake of an earlier pre-code/proto-Noir film about a girl caught up in the "white slave" (prostitution) trade. RKO, facing the prudish Production Code and a rising star in Lucille Ball (STAGE DOOR, ROOM SERVICE and a couple of her "Anabel" films behind her and TOO MANY GIRLS, DU BARRY WAS A LADY and BEST FOOT FORWARD still in front of her) expunged most of the references to sex in favor of timely (WWII was raging in China and would start in Europe in four months although the U.S. would hold on to its neutrality for another two and a half years) gun running and jealousy subplots and got solid dramatic performances from Lucy and her co-stars (especially Allan Lane as the good boyfriend and Donald Briggs as the bad).

Taken seriously, the 65 minute spring 1939 (May 12) release offers a lot of solid fun. The attempt at twists in the resolution of the South American plot and the O'Henry-esquire finale do come across as a little strained, but the production getting there is generally first rate after the stock footage of New York landmarks in the opening "framing" scene.

Had first tier screenwriter Michael Kanin (Garson's older brother, one film away from his Oscar winning WOMAN OF THE YEAR screenplay) worked a little harder on the last five or six minutes, the film might be far better remembered today - or was he done in by second time director Jack Hively (already having edited THE AFFAIRS OF ANABEL with Lucy and one of the SAINT films he would go on to direct) pushing too hard to finish on time and under budget? A decade later, over at Universal International, Hively was also director for one of their rare Broadway musical transfers, ARE YOU WITH IT - one of his last full Hollywood directing credits. It's one of Donald O'Connor's best performances, but also suffers from production and editing indignities which may have left a lot of good material on the cutting room floor.

Not-bad little proto-noir with a hardbitten Lucy

[mgmax · 7/10 · 8 May 2000]

1940's The Stranger on the Third Floor is usually cited as Hollywood's earliest example of true noir style, but here's a movie from a year earlier that also incorporates a guilt-ridden protagonist with a past, first-person narration, and a flashback structure. Both were probably inspired by the French film Pepe le Moko (1938), but since this is a remake of a 1931 film called Panama Flo, who knows whether they weren't all present in that version as well? In any case, it's quite a decent little B that gives Lucy one of her toughest and most downbeat dramatic parts, on a par with Dance Girl Dance; if you only know her for her later comedy days, it's well worth seeing these early roles to see the kind of realistic blue-collar gal in the Ginger Rogers mode which she played very well.

Stick With This One

[bbrebozo · 7/10 · 16 October 2014]

You know what confused me about this film? The idiotic notion that McTeague, the male lead, would coerce Lucy to come with him to his South American hideaway to serve as his housekeeper, when he already had Cheema, another female housekeeper, in residence at his relatively small house. And it seemed even more ridiculous that the two housekeepers would get into several jealous and potentially deadly conflicts.

Then it suddenly entered my thick head: They're his PROSTITUTES, you moron! It's a post-Code movie, so the writers had to portray Lucy and Cheema as a couple of chaste "housekeepers" who were getting into fights over which one of them would polish McTeague's banister.

After that, the movie made much more sense.

Lucille Ball is gorgeous in this film, almost Lauren Bacall-ish in many of the shots. Her character is the polar opposite of the Lucy Ricardo we all know and love. This Lucy is chronically depressed, more than a little whorish, and not the slightest bit funny. Her character would probably be a drug addict and/or alcoholic if the movie were re-made today. And, with her incredible talent, Lucille Ball pulls it off beautifully, and makes you forget the I Love Lucy she later became.

At first I was put off by Alan Lane's performance as McTeague, which I initially found nebulous and unclear. But after the film was over, I was impressed with his performance, for precisely the same reasons. It was McTeague's somewhat schizophrenic personality that actually made the movie work. And although I don't recall ever seeing Steffi Duna before, her Cheema character was exotic and intriguing. Again, her behavior was hard to pin down at first, but made more sense at the end.

Kudos also to the production and direction team, who applied a few very creative touches. Notable among those is the scene that was shot from the blindfolded Lucy's perspective, and the camera shifting to Cheema's shadow while she was doing something shadowy.

Hey guys, this movie's only an hour long. Why not give it a shot? And even if it isn't making a lot of sense at first, try to stick with it. If you're like me, the payoff will be worth the relatively short investment of time.

Tawdry melodrama of the "so bad it's good" school.

[BrentCarleton · 17 March 2004]

Most of her admirers do not realize that for many years prior to her TV career, Lucille Ball was a very competent, dishy, and prolific motion picture actress. This particular opus, though both sordid and incredible, does present Miss Ball, with billing over the title, in an undoubtedly bizarre concoction, that has, for whatever reason, been strangely overlooked for many years. Most interesting perhaps is that her character's name is "Lucy,"(the first time Miss Ball ever portrayed a character with that name--though this particular 'Lucy' has nothing in common with Mrs. Ricardo.)

Essentially it is celluloid pulp fiction detailing the romantic and criminal mis-adventures of a New York show girl reduced to dancing in the floor show of a Panamanian dive. While thus employed, she is innocently implicated in the robbery of a drunken oil prospector, who only drops jail charges, if she will agree to become his live in--"housekeeper." Enter true love here.

The illicit and licentious angles of the story, with its strong intimations of prostitution at the dive, and free-love at the prospector's camp, (with a interloper-native girl named "Cheema" no less), are unmistakably suggested, through "Sadie Thompson" style dialogue and atmosphere. For example, one of the "B girls", named Pearl, decked in cheap jewelry over a flowered frock, achieves unparalleled camp value with her lowered eyelids, hands on the hips swagger as she moves in for the kill--greeting her would be conquest with the highly original, "Hello handsome."

RKO's technical accoutrements, as would be expected, are A-1, though this is clearly a second feature. Miss Ball plays a decent and attractive doll, who retains her virtue, despite being forced to tramp the streets or the pampas, as the case would have it, (perhaps owing to her lack of education--she proudly mis-pronounces "petroleum" as "petoleum" !

Though much of the dialogue is painfully stereotypical, (Cheema witnessing a murder, declaims in threateningly thick accents with finger pointed accusingly, "Cheema tell tribe!" the story manages to engage by sheer force of its outrageous plot. Even better, is Evelyn Brent, as the madame "Lenore" (with a trollopish wardrobe that anticipates Carol Burnett as "Eunice") who gets such enunciate such subtleties as "...Be nice to Mr. McTeague Lucy or I'll fire you!"

With such dialogue as this it would appear the script is written by and for idiots, but, lo and behold, it's by Michael Kanin who later penned Katherine Hepburn's "Woman of the Year," (surely Mr. Kanin your tongue was firmly in your cheek?)

Despite her perpetually impecunious state,Miss Ball's character somehow manages a nifty array of outfits, that includes a white sharkskin suit, and a wool blazer, skirt, grosgain pumps, and trilby hat ensemble, that, assuredly would have been the envy of most Gotham girls that were "down and out" in 1939.

Yes, Miss Ball is plenty attractive here, though to witness her at the peak of her pulchritude, check out "Beauty for the Asking" also from 1939.

All in all though, with its blend of simmering sin, and triumphant virtue, as laid out in both the South American and Manhattan jungles, "Panama Lady" is really rather fun as an outrageous camp fest. Enjoy.

one of lucy's non-comedic roles

[ksf-2 · 6/10 · 8 October 2021]

This one was kind of in the middle of Lucy's hollywood films... she had been around a couple years, but would go on to make films another ten years before her tv series with Desi. This one has the bonus of being filmed in an "exotic, central america locale", meaning the back lot, made up to look like another, far-away land. Lucy plays Lucy, who meets up with a wild, hard drinking oil man McTeague, in panama. Allan Lane, known mostly for his westerns, will also do the voice of Mister Ed, for the entire television series. In panama, when the local girls take McTeague's bankroll, Lucy agrees to keep his house for him, and work off what they took from him. The original film from 1932 starred Helen Twelvetrees, and was also done by RKO. It's pretty good! Co-stars Steffi Duna, Evelyn Brent. Directed by Jack Hively. He directed a bunch of Saints. And a bunch of Lassie's.

Film Noir?

[boblipton · 6/10 · 17 September 2023]

Dance-hall girl Lucille Ball helps roll Allan Lane. When he sobers up, she has a choice: jail, or accompany him to his place in the middle of Ecuador to be his housekeeper. She chooses the second.

And that's quite literally what she is, and no more. In fact, she's the head housekeeper since she has Steffi Duna helping her out, when Miss Duna isn't trying to poison her in a fit of jealousy over Lane. This is the peak of the Production Code Era, or the nadir depending on your viewpoint, and this remake of a decidedly pre-code movie has been carefully denuded of anything that might offend Joe Breen.

What makes this movie interesting -- besides the fact that Miss Ball's character is named 'Lucy' -- is that this might be the first film noir. That's a risky statement to make, because defining film noir is so difficult that even Eddie Muller, who should know, says that it's an attitude. But by the time people noticed the genre, a film noir movie had certain things that marked it: it was a crime picture, told in flashback with a magical realism attitude, set in a corrupt world, and the camerawork was derived from German Expressionism, with a lot of shadows. There was often a femme fatale and a clock.

This movie meets most of those criteria, particularly the camerawork. J. Roy Hunt isn't a name to conjure with, but he was a solid professional in charge of the camera on some fine A Pictures for Paramount in the silent era. He moved to RKO in 1929, and handled the camera for many of their important pictures, but after 1938 the prestigious movies went to other cinematographers.... not that RKO was producing many of those. Still, his lighting added a lot to many movies that might otherwise be forgotten. He was the credited DP on more than 200 movies through 1952 and died twenty years later at the age of 88. In this movie there are plenty of shadows.

The other key person here is the director, Jack Hively. In 1939 Hively directed five movies. Other years he was an editor. The flashback structure of this movie undoubtedly made it tricky to shoot, and someone with an editorial background must have seemed a natural choice for this B movie.

It certainly wasn't considered an important movie at the time, and the issue of whether it was a film noir is a murky one; over in Japan, Ozu had directed DRAGNET GIRL in 1933, and it looks like a film noir to me, Other sources credit 1942 as the year noir began, with THE MALTESE FALCON and THIS GUN FOR HIRE considered key. I'm confounded by a philosophical question: can a movie be a genre movie if it's the first one? Does the leader make a movement, or followers?

Whichever side of the question you come down on, this is a minor picture competently produced, even if the interesting stuff had been largely eviscerated. That, to me, is the heart of film noir: with the Production Code in force, the audience had to look into their own assumptions of how the world really worked to understand what the people on the screen were talking about and doing. They had to look into the shadows, and there are plenty of them here.

interesting for Lucy fans

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 10 October 2021]

Saloon dancer Lucy (Lucille Ball) is in trouble in Panama. She gets bailed out by oil rigger Dennis McTeague (Allan Lane). He hires her to be his housekeeper in his jungle camp. She fears the worst of his intentions but he's a gentleman. She's his housekeeper.

This story would work better if it's a bit darker. I don't know what I was expecting. I knew this isn't a comedy, at least not an I Love Lucy comedy. She needs a bit more chemistry with Allan Lane. This needs something to help it work as a romance. Their banter could be better. Lucille Ball does deliver some sly looks which would remind fans of her comedic moves. She has some of her sardonic mannerisms. This is good for her fans but not so good for non-fans.

D'oh! I meant Le Jour Se Leve

[mgmax · 7/10 · 10 August 2002]

I meant Le Jour Se Leve probably influenced this, not Pepe le

Moko. If you really want to see this movie

it's on a Turner laserdisc.

Incredibly forgettable and not worth your time

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 22 November 2006]

If you watch this film, you'll no doubt be surprised how dull and listless this film is. After all, only a little over a decade later, the star of this film, Lucille Ball, would be declared the funniest lady in America. Well, none of this is evident in this movie at all. It isn't funny (nor is it intended to be) and the movie just isn't a quality effort at all. This isn't just because this is a B-movie-- after all, there are some marvelous B-pictures that transcend their modest budgets. No, the problem is that the characters just aren't very likable or believable and the script is just dull and, at times, stupid. Now as far as the stupidity of the script goes, this was really obvious towards the end. The whole way in which Lucy's evil boyfriend is shot is just pure hooey--so much so that it's almost laughable. Then, at the very end, despite it being obvious that the other man is desperately in love with her, a decent guy and very rich, Lucy tries to wander off into the crowd and forget him! Heck, I would have been thrilled to have married him (and I'm a guy)!

Unusual role for Lucille Ball as a down and out showgirl in Panama

[ccmiller1492 · 8/10 · 23 August 2003]

Unusual role for Lucille Ball as a down and out showgirl in Panama whose no-good fiancé involves her in illegal nefarious deeds. She winds up abandoned and has to escape into the jungles of Ecuador with a dangerously roguish oil prospector (Allan Lane)who graciously allows her to "shack-up" with him in a very compromising manner, even though he has a sultry native "housekeeper" who attempts to do her in by poisoning. The boyfriend eventually shows up to "rescue" her in his plane but only intends to murder her at the behest of his gun smuggling friends. This film definitely holds the interest with Ball and Lane carrying it with their downbeat nearly noir characters and situation. Stick around till the end, as you will care whether these two appealing people can make a go of things or no.

Lucy Does Okay In Spite of Scene Stealer

[medwardb1976 · 31 August 2009]

First off, even though I saw the film some years ago, I can't forget Evelyn Brent's electric performance in a supporting role in which she manages to steal every scene from the star throughout the movie's first half. In fact, as I recall, Lucy just wisely keeps a low profile in her appearances with Ms. Brent, who is just too much to compete with. But finally her character takes a final exit. After that Lucy does come alive as the star and shines from then on, rising above the mediocre material of this B- film. And Lucy Recardo she is not!

What I like most is Lucy's line at the story's high-point: "I'm going to take just one more crack at making a gentleman out of you, and if that doesn't work, we're really in trouble!"

Red Mud

[tedg · 29 December 2005]

A great invention of cinema so far is noir, together with cinematic sport, smoke and fireballs. Noir is new, subtle, introspective. It advances and spins all sorts of sophisticated children, sometimes thought as ironic.

Its origins aren't quite as interesting as what it has ballooned to, how it has encompassed the world. But if you are interested in origins, look at this. It incidentally includes Lucy (using her own name) so you can impose your own layer of noir/irony on it as a modern viewer.

In its time, it was meant to evoke "Red Dust," a little piece about prostitution in the jungle leading to love. This is actually a remake of the original that was quickly made in 32 after the success of 'Red Dust."

Post-code, you don't have much of a whiff of sex here, and Lucy doesn't give the impression of a doomed soul that true noir would later demand. But you do have a clear notion here of the central notion of noir: fate seeming to deliberately conspire against on ordinary foil, odd coincidences, extreme consequences from trivial acts. Plus rank selfishness.. What's missing is the dark, angled photography that would later be associated with noir, even for some its defining feature. And you don't yet have the heavy introductory voice-over. But you do have something similar, a framing flashback.

It has an uncharacteristic ending for a noir, a happy coupling. Lucy is saved. I think this was before she became a redhead.

Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

Compared to the original version

[jarrodmcdonald-1 · 14 May 2022]

This remake was produced seven years after PANAMA FLO, on the eve of U. S. involvement in the second world war. One wonders why RKO execs chose to remake this particular property, when there were countless other vehicles they could have adapted for up-and-coming star Lucille Ball. She is hardly a stand-in for Helen Twelvetrees...their performance styles are not at all alike.

Also the studio had Allan Lane under contract, and why the bosses thought he was a substitute for Charles Bickford is anyone's guess. It probably seems obvious to you the reader that I was less enthralled with the remake than its cinematic forebear, though I don't take issue with either Miss Ball or Mr. Lane. I wouldn't go so far as to say they're miscast, but I don't think this type of dramatic story is best suited to their unique talents.

During this same year Lucille Ball appeared in the B-action flick FIVE CAME BACK. For some reason, the studio wanted to push her as a dramatic leading lady. But she is better at comedic situations, and so is Allan Lane. It is not surprising that Garrett Fort's script from the 1932 version was rewritten by Michael Kanin (brother of Garson), who added sarcasm and wisecracks.

Story-wise, the key differences compared to the original are as follows...the villain, previously played by Robert Armstrong, now has less screen time. Donald Briggs, the actor who plays him now, is fifth-billed; and his deviousness is shown almost immediately. Ball doesn't see him off in the beginning when he smooth talks her...instead, she hides in the back of the plane and they travel to some rendezvous point. She learns he is involved in gun smuggling, related to the encroaching war in Europe.

He has her blindfolded and returned to the saloon. The smuggling subplot is not developed too much, except to clue the audience in on the guy's obvious villainy and to foster the idea that our leading lady doesn't deserve a heel like him.

The second main difference is that Sadie the proprietress is renamed Lenore and she does not get away with the scheme to bilk the oilman out of his bankroll. She is arrested, along with Pearl the other hostess. In addition to this, Lenore loses her saloon. Clearly the production code office wanted her punished! We are also told that Ball's character, unlike Twelvetrees' character, does not live with the other girls which suggests she has a better reputation than they do.

When Ball goes to stay with Lane at his plantation along the Amazon, she uses Lane's room, and he sleeps on the couch. However, she soon moves into a separate room. When she grabs one of his guns for protection she just aims it, and he gets the message. She does not fire at him, like Miss Twelvetrees fired at Mr. Bickford. Because of these changes, the remake is a lot more scrubbed up.

There is soft music playing in the background during scenes where dialogue occurs between the leads; in the original there was no real soundtrack except for when they turned on the record player. This version is shinier, and the sets are a bit elaborate, which indicates the money RKO made on those profitable Astaire-Rogers musicals had been wisely reinvested.

Another important deviation comes in the form of the native girl. She has been renamed Cheema and is played by Steffi Duna (wife of Dennis O'Keefe). She is turned into a stereotype and does heinous things. For example, she tries to poison Ball on two separate occasions out of jealousy; and she is the one who fires the fatal shot that kills the aviator. I guess this was done so Allan Lane's character could be completely blameless and an acceptable partner for Lucille Ball's character at the end.

The remake runs ten minutes shorter, probably because much of the stuff with the aviator was cut. When he shows up at the plantation, he wastes no time finding the oil lease papers. Then he is shot dead about a minute later. Gone is much of the smoldering passion and the triangle between the oilman, saloon girl and aviator. Most of the scenes at the plantation involve the evil machinations of the native girl as well as a new character named Elisha (Abner Biberman) who assists Lane.

My guess is that people watching PANAMA LADY without having seen PANAMA FLO will find it passable diverting entertainment. But it really is not as good as the original. The biggest issue I had was the updated modern lingo and how Kanin took pains to explain too many things to the audience. In the first picture, we are trusted to make inferences and draw our own conclusions about why these two people wind up together...in the remake it is all carefully laid out so that we do not miss the morally correct reasons their union is acceptable.