This film was originally going to be called "That Girl", and the part of Marie Galante was a French girl who betrays her own country. The part was originally offered to Lili Damita, who turned it down because she could not stomach playing the part of a French traitress.
A couple of years down the line, and we have a new title, a new French actress, a new script and a new country to betray. Marie Galante is a French post office employee who gets shanghaied delivering a telegram to an arms smuggler. She eventually finishes up officially accused of being a stowaway, and singing in a bar in Panama.
But Panama City is a hotbed of spies and counter espionage. The counter spies are looking for an unsavoury character who turns up in trouble spots all over the world - only no one knows what he looks like. Naturally, we try to guess who the person is, only to find that the film makers have cheated by making him a character that doesn't appear until at least halfway though the film. Just for a change, the Japanese is one of the good guys. Spencer Tracy is an expert on tropical diseases, although we have guessed early on that he is not what he says he is. Marie Galante is tricked into spying against the USA rather than France.
Probably because of the rewritten screenplay, the denouement is a bit of a mess; but the film has a happy albeit uncertain ending when the girl gets not only Spencer Tracy at the end, but the Japanese as well! Ketti Gallian, who plays the title role, plays a stereotypical French girl. Her hair photographs badly. She is meant to be blonde, but looks more like an albina. There is nothing particularly wrong with her acting, except that it lacks the personality of a star.
The film is perfectly watchable, although it lacks the tension of a really good thriller.
A couple of years down the line, and we have a new title, a new French actress, a new script and a new country to betray. Marie Galante is a French post office employee who gets shanghaied delivering a telegram to an arms smuggler. She eventually finishes up officially accused of being a stowaway, and singing in a bar in Panama.
But Panama City is a hotbed of spies and counter espionage. The counter spies are looking for an unsavoury character who turns up in trouble spots all over the world - only no one knows what he looks like. Naturally, we try to guess who the person is, only to find that the film makers have cheated by making him a character that doesn't appear until at least halfway though the film. Just for a change, the Japanese is one of the good guys. Spencer Tracy is an expert on tropical diseases, although we have guessed early on that he is not what he says he is. Marie Galante is tricked into spying against the USA rather than France.
Probably because of the rewritten screenplay, the denouement is a bit of a mess; but the film has a happy albeit uncertain ending when the girl gets not only Spencer Tracy at the end, but the Japanese as well! Ketti Gallian, who plays the title role, plays a stereotypical French girl. Her hair photographs badly. She is meant to be blonde, but looks more like an albina. There is nothing particularly wrong with her acting, except that it lacks the personality of a star.
The film is perfectly watchable, although it lacks the tension of a really good thriller.