"Trade Winds" Review

 

by Daniel White

The film where Joan Bennett went from blonde to black! And never went back! Trade Winds (1938) is probably most famous for that, the changing of its leading lady's hair color. Miss Bennett had been kicking around Hollywood for nearly a decade, and while certainly not a nobody, had yet to achieve genuine stardom. All that changed with the bottle of henna (or whatever product was used) that facilitated her shift from dewy-eyed ingenue to sultry femme fatale.

In this Tay Garnett travelogue, she plays a suspected murderess on the lam. But she's no hardened killer, just a sweet, Chopin-playing pianist who impulsively shoots the cad responsible for her sister's suicide. The movie is also famous for director Garnett's use of the home movies he inserted into the flick. Taken while on sabbatical traveling in Asia, he fashioned (along with Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell) this silly mystery/comedy story.

Kay Kerrigan (Bennett) has offed the son of one of San Francisco's more prominent families. With a $100,000 reward on her pretty, newly-darkened head, private investigator Sam Wye (Frederic March) is hot on her trail. Or sea lane as the case may be, for Kay has made her escape via an ocean liner, heading to Hawaii and then the Far East. It's a trite, tired tale (albeit with some zippy, zingy one-liners) draped around Garnett's vacation footage, but the four leads manage to breathe some much needed life into the proceedings.

Besides our attractive stars, March and Bennett, Ralph Bellamy and Ann Sothern are (literally) on board. Bellamy as a dense detective is fun, but it's the plucky Miss Sothern who really sparkles. As March's put-upon private secretary (is Annie practicing for bigger and better things?), she is a comic delight. Lucille Ball once remarked that Ann Sothern was the funniest woman in show business. High praise indeed coming from a lady who knew a thing or two about getting laughs. The (newly) brunette, glamorous Bennett and the peppy, wise-cracking Sothern carved out interesting, iconic niches in film and television. Among other roles, Joan appeared in four films directed by the great Fritz Lang, while over at MGM Ann played Maisie in a series of popular screwball farces. Both are unique cinema queens.

They may not be the most glittering or legendary of female movie stars, but Hollywood was a much more engaging place because they were there. And of course, both triumphed on the small screen as well. Produced by Bennett's soon to be husband, Walter Wanger, and distributed through United Artists, Trade Winds is currently streaming on Tubi.