Lady of the Tropics (DVD), Warner Archives, Drama

CAN LOVERS HEDY LAMARR AND ROBERT TAYLOR ESCAPE THE SHADOW OF HER HALF-CASTE ORIGINS Hedy Lamarr's next screen destination after her splashy Hollywood debut in Algiers was exotic Saigon, where she bewitches heartthrob Robert Taylor as alluring Manon DeVargnes, the half-caste whose mixed-race French/Vietnamese parentage is a perpetual barrier to her dream of relocating to Paris. Powerful local businessman Pierre Delaroch (Joseph Schildkraut, improbably playing Eurasian) loves her, but his manipulative devotion to Manon carries a heavy price. The love American playboy Bill Carey (Taylor) has for the inscrutable beauty is absolute, but after he impetuously marries her, with his fortunes dwindling and Delaroch tightening his grip on Manon, it will prove insufficient to reverse her fate as a lady without a passport (invoking a future Lamarr title). As this was penned by master romanticist Ben Hecht (Wuthering Heights, Notorious) and shows off two of movie history's most glamorous stars via Norbert Brodine's lush Oscar-nominated cinematography, you may well be irretrievably seduced by Lady of the Tropics.