I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

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!"

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.

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.

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.