Better Late Then Never

A brilliant film that helped define a genre

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Mostly, the movie is committed to the value of a good time.

This is a very entertaining movie on more than one level. Not only is there a twist at the end, love prevails, and we get to see glimpses of Asia. The dialog sparkles even 70 years after it was made, and we see the flaws in money as the only motive for a chase. I have lived in or visited many of the places seen in the background of this film, and enjoyed the visual hint that these wealthy travelers are living in a world of their own, unconnected with local people or places. Not all the backgrounds are convincing, as I think the filmmakers took artistic license, but the clothes! the manners! the relationships! are lots of fun. And nary a word about the humidity! I got a special kick out of Wye's pith helmet, a total cultural borrowing from the English in India.

I guess by the negative reviews here, movie viewers have not gotten any smarter in the 75 years since this film was released. Few people can appreciate and enjoy the brilliant sophistication of this film.First it is important to understand that censorship by the Hayes Office was at its worst in 1938. It wasn't strictly enforced before 1936 and relaxed a little bit during World World II. By the early 1950's European cinema was cracking open the Hollywood censorship open bit by bit. In 1937-38, it was perhaps at its strictest. The fact that Dorothy Parker and Tay Garnet was able to push such a sensuous and passionate movie past the Hayes Code censors is a tribute to their brilliance. Tay Garnet later directed the equally sensuous and passionate "The Postman Always Rings Twice" in 1946.Think of the lead characters - the heroine is a murderer (even if she has her reasons) and the hero is a hard drinking, mercenary womanizer. The Hayes Code strictly forbade glamorizing such people and allowing them to go unpunished for their behavior. Yet Garnet, Parker and Alan Campbell are able to come up with characters and a plot that tie the Hayes code in knots. They are totally charming rogues.Joan Bennett and Fredric March are amazing in the leads -- witty, charming and sophisticated. Their sidekicks, Ann Southern and Ralph Bellamy are hilarious. The plot twists are still novel and unexpected after all these years.As for the bad process photography that reviewers are complaining about, please understand that this is a comedy. The process photography was poorly done on purpose. The film was sarcastically commenting on the overuse of process shots in Hollywood by throwing in dozens of obviously fake process shots of Japan, China, Indochina, Singapore and more. The process shots are hilarious. Complaining about the process shots is like complaining that the sets and special effects in Austin Powers don't look as believable as the ones in James Bond.After watching this one, I'm ready to go out and party and drink a toast to Dorothy, Alan, Tay, Joan, Fredric, Ann and Ralph. Of all the screwball comedies of the 1930's, this is one of the most sophisticated and funniest. Don't miss it.

Detective (March) goes on globe-hopping quest to return suspected murderess (Bennett) to authorities. He's aided by two bumblers (Sothern & Bellamy), at the same time he falls for his attractive quarry.Not quite a sophisticated comedy, not quite a picaresque chase, not quite a murder mystery- - all add up to a not very good movie. Hard to believe this is from glossy MGM since the production values are nearly incompetent. In fact, I've seen better process shots from a Lash LaRue oater, and since these make up half the movie, you've got to wonder where quality control was.I'm assuming acerbic wit Dorothy Parker and husband Alan Campbell were hired to furnish sophisticated banter for the two couples. If so, I must have missed it. What I did hear were subtle grammar gaffes from Sothern (e.g. 'whom for 'who') and clever malaprops (e.g. 'deduct' for 'deduce') from Bellamy, intended, I guess, to show their humorous pretensions, but hardly crowd-pleasers.Also, it looks like Bellamy's buffoonish cop amounts to a typical example of 30's cops when Hollywood treated them as low-comedy relief. And whose idea was it to tack on the last 10-minutes of whodunit that sort of sticks out like a glued on appendage.Where the movie does work is with the lovely Bennett and the comedically gifted Sothern. Still, it's a bit puzzling why the movie didn't turn out better given the talent involved, including ace producer Walter Wanger. Maybe it has to do with as many as four writers and who knows how many re-writes or with director Garnett's inability to forge a unifying style. But, whatever the reason, the film remains a somewhat unlikely disappointment.

Was there ever a more relaxed, charming rogue than Frederic March? He would have been a perfect James Bond, had the role been available to him in the '30s. As it is, he made do spectacularly with this one: he's Sam Wye, a former SFPD detective, hired to find and bring back the luminous Joan Bennett, who's suspected of murdering Sidney Blackmer... When her car goes into the Bay, she swims ashore and goes on the run... The action roves as the trade winds of the title, straying from the piers of the city by the Bay to Honolulu, Singapore, Tokyo, Hanoi, and Colombo, Ceylon. Ralph Bellamy,side-hick to March, sez: "Colombo? I thought that was in Ohio..." Ann Sothern is glamorous, and Joan Bennett sizzles. This is the movie in which she dyed her hair black -- and then kept it dark for the next 50 years...leaving the blonde Bennett roles to sister Constance. As a glimpse of pre-War Asia, and an insight into the world before terrorism, this is a charming and lovely memory. You'll yearn for the time when cruise attire was more than sweatsuits and sneakers...and all this with dialog by Dorothy Parker!