Trade Winds Reviews

Sharp dialog from the acid pen of Dorothy Parker highlights this lighthearted chase along the rim of Asia. Bennett is a young pianist in San Francisco who sets out for revenge when her sister commits suicide over a man. She goes out to shoot him, and when he falls down dead she fakes her own suicide and takes off for the other side of the world, with detectives March and Bellamy in pursuit. Stopping in Honolulu she has her hair dyed brunette (a change that made her look strikingly like Hedy Lamarr, and that was so well received she kept her hair dark for the rest of her career) before taking off again for Japan, China, Singapore, Bombay, and the tiny chain of Laccadive Islands in the Indian Ocean. By the time March catches up to her, he has fallen desperately in love with her and he helps prove that it wasn't Bennett, but another jilted lover, who shot the cad at the opening. Mostly the film was an excuse for Garnett to use a quantity of stock footage he had shot on a long voyage through the same waters. As the director asked rhetorically in his autobiography, "How often do you get a chance to take your own boat around the world, tax deductible?" March is his usual easy-going self, and Bellamy is adequate as his slightly dim sidekick, but it is Bennett, a revelation in dark hair, and Sothern, whose character here would give rise to the MAISIE series and make her a star, who really carry the picture, thanks to the acerbic and fast-paced script. The film was a great success, revitalizing the careers of Bennett and Sothern and enhancing the reputations of everyone involved.