María Galante

In the early 1930s Fox Studios went from extreme commercial and critical success with hits like State Fair and Best Picture winner Cavalcade, to being among the most heavily indebted production companies, and was one of the first to go into receivership. The release of Marie Galante in 1934 came from a studio in a state of panic, and is one of many curious little pieces from the era.

Marie Galante was directed by Henry King, one of the longest-serving and most respected men at Fox. This picture finds him at his most baroque and artistically European in style. During the opening scenes the camera tracks along following Ketti Gallian through a number of settings, but she is back amid the clutter of the sets. This draws our attention to the star, but gives us the feeling of voyeurs stood outside the action. Later, in the office where we first meet Spencer Tracy and the other secret service people, a huge whirring fan and its shadow dominate every shot. It's not only a reminder of the oppressive heat, but touches like this give the environment a character of its own. The only time we are totally focused on the actors it is via gritty close-ups. There were only a handful of directors in Hollywood during this era who were giving such prominence to the sets, but they were mostly Germans like Fritz Lang and Josef von Sternberg.

Appropriately enough for this European flavouring, the star of Marie Galante is a French woman. Ketti Gallian's looks and some extent her mannerisms make her appear as another Marlene Dietrich, and this is probably why the studio snapped her up. Compared to the German siren though she is a somewhat bland, and makes a rather weak and forgettable heroine. Spencer Tracey, his star on the ascendant, provides a steady and realistic performance, but he seems just a little constrained by this rather stolid role. Amid all the stark sets and quirky angles, resolutely American character players Ned Sparks and Stepin Fetchit seem strangely out of place, although sensibly their roles have not been emphasised too much, and they at least give the picture its only flashes of warmth and humour.

Marie Galante is a strange little picture and the way it is made is even stranger. The plot points don't seem directed towards the audience. Instead, understanding it is like watching a group of people across a restaurant and trying to piece together their relationships. It's not that it's difficult to follow, just that doing so is a slightly cold and alienating experience. It does look incredibly neat and stylish, and is vaguely interesting simply for the oddity that it is, but the sense of vitality and connection that 30s Hollywood usually offered is sadly missing.

As reported here, Marie Galante is a French girl working with the French telegram public agency who, after suffering several mishaps, "ends up singing in a café in the Panama Canal Zone". She soon gets involved in a plot to destroy the canal, a ship or a fleet. «Marie Galante» was based on a best-selling novel by Jacques Duval published in 1931, but when the screenwriters adapted it to cinema they "fumigated" the story and almost canonized Marie. In the original Marie Basilide is a poor girl from Bordeaux that is kidnapped and abandoned in Venezuela, and who finally arrives in Panama where she prostitutes to achieve her goal of returning home. It was a mixture of espionage and sex, and a reflection on French colonialism, referring to the Panama Canal. The movie is anything but that, maybe espionage and a little of prudish sex, but no more. Referring to the synopsis, what caught my attention most was the phrase "café in the Panama Canal Zone". Was this kind of place existent in the Canal Zone? I do not have the answer and I have no idea what the Zonians would do to have fun at night outside the barracks or homes in the military forts. I know that the city of Panamá once had fancy cabarets, where famous artists performed, where Evita Perón sang and where soldiers and marines used to go. But I never heard of cafes or bars strictly speaking within the militarized Canal Zone. In my youth, if I ever went to anything remotely similar, it was a big wood yacht club on the banks of the canal, where bands of American soldiers and Panamanians played rock and roll. In any case, returning to «Marie Galante», the film was not as successful as expected, though it is entertaining enough, and director Henry King maintained the interest with discretion, without becoming a "great espionage opus". Nevertheless, that did not prevent that a theatrical producer urged Deval to turn it into a musical the year the film was released. To that end, the producer hired none other than Kurt Weill, the master composer who collaborated with playwright Bertolt Brecht, and author of the song «Mack the Knife». But the frivolous Deval did not take the job seriously, he went to the United States to have fun and did not really adapt his novel to the stage, but directly transferred fragments of dialogue from the novel to the musical libretto, with many sets to make any set designer crazy, including a port with moving ships. The musical did not last a month in the theater. Efforts were made in 2009 to resurrect it and it was staged in Rome and New York. In the movies, the novel had better luck, when a new (unacredited) version was made by Fox in 1940, for the Charlie Chan series: the quite appreciable «Charlie Chan in Panama» in which Sidney Toler was by far more entertaining and astute than Spencer Tracy in «Marie Galante», as the investigator who uncovers a plot to destroy the Panama Canal.

M. G. opens in a restaurant somewhere in France, with the sound of people singing. Then Marie Galante (K Gallian) on a bicycle rushing off somewhere.... Lots of people speaking French, and the ship captain gets a telegram in English, with lots of orders. The movie has been playing for two minutes and i'm already lost, although it might be my own fault for forgetting so much of my high school francais. It turns out the ship cast off while she was still aboard. More francais spoken. Then we're somewhere in central America, according to the title card, and we meet Dr. Crawbett (Spencer Tracy), Plosser the nightclub owner played by the great but sarcastic Ned Sparks (ya GOTTA see him in The Bride Walks Out 1936 - Hilarious!), spies, and various other suspicious people. According to Marie, (Ketti Gallian), she just wants to get back to her homeland. Crawbett and someone who MUST be a spy are sorting out the people in the nightclub, and that is the beginning of the story. Galante ends up going in search of a Frenchman who may or may not be able to help her get home. The screenplay and acting are quite competent, but the lighting is spotty and poor at times. When the camera pans around Marie Galante's room, it zooms past posters and things that would be helpful and interesting to be able to see. It appears Gallian's film career fizzled, while Tracy's bloomed and took off. Sharp viewers will also spot Sig Ruman, who plays Brogard. He had made A Day at the Races and A Night at the Opera with the Marx Brothers. The spy plot and "foreign" locations (including the Panama Canal, whether or not we are really there...) make this an interesting, exotic story, while we try to figure out who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys.

I must admit to being a bit disappointed. This film seems to bring forth a lot of talented actors, but loses their interaction in the plot. Beautiful Frenchwoman, Ketti Gillian, starts off at as the star, and she acts well. I like that she has several realistic scenes speaking French where there are no subtitles. English speakers need not freak out. She isn't saying anything important in these scenes. However, she practically gets lost after the first 15 minutes.

At that point, we are introduced to the real hero, Spencer Tracy. He is a nicely laid back rather intelligent hero. The movie quickly becomes a rather standard mystery-spy tale with the audience and hero trying to guess the identity of the rogue agent who is plotting to blow up the Panama Canal. The other supporting actors deliver nice performances, Ned Sparks, Helen Morgan, Sig Ruman, and Leslie Fenton are all effective. Unfortunately, they each get a few scenes, about ten minutes and their characters don't develop, but just tend to disappear. The feel is very much like a Charlie Chan or Mr. Moto or other slightly above-average clever mystery movie of the 1930's.

It is just disappointing that it wasn't more ambitious. With some more work, it could have been much closer to "Casablanca." Instead, it feels like two reels of an "A" picture and then six reels of a "B."

MARIE GALANTE (Fox Films, 1934), directed by Henry King, stars Spencer Tracy in an espionage spy story set in Panama City. The title character does not go to Tracy but to Ketti Gallian, a French-born actress making her American movie debut. As much as Gallian acquires enough attention to make this movie her own, and her being the studio's answer to foreign-born imports as Greta Garbo (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer) or Marlene Dietrich (Paramount), Gallian failed to make that impact with American audiences. Although she wasn't that bad in her galante performance, having the opportunity singing a French song "Un Peu, Bean Coup," and acquiring enough closeups, the material, based on the novel by Jacques DuVal, is mainly routine regardless of fine cast to back her up.

Opening on a seacoast town in France, Marie Galante (Ketti Gallian) is introduced as a messenger working for a telegraph office, bike riding her telegrams to assigned individuals. Delivering a telegram to a captain (Robert Gleckler) located in a cafe, he invites her over his ship, The Hettie King, to wait for a reply. Because of his drunkenness, the captain orders the steamship to leave port, naming Marie a stowaway and holding her prisoner in the brig below. Dropping her off at a seacoast in Central America, Marie, wanting nothing more than to get back to France, she is advised by an agent her only way home is to board a docked ship at the Panama Canal. Through the goodness of one man, she acquires a job working for the Pacific Gardens Cafe managed by Plosser (Ned Sparks). In the meantime, General Phillips (Arthur Byron), Governor of the Panama Canal Zone, holds a meeting with Ellsworth (Frank Darien) and Ratcliffe (Robert Lorraine) from England discussing on the capture of a notorious ringleader named Ryner (a master of disguises) with intentions on sabotaging the Panama Canal. Jim Crawbett (Spencer Tracy) from Wisconsin, an undercover agent posing as a doctor experimenting on tropical diseases, secretly handles the case. While at the cafe, Crawbett becomes interested in Marie Galante. He soon discovers her involvement with various characters promising to help her return home, feeling that maybe one of them could the man he's assigned to capture.

Members of the cast include Siegfried Rumann (Brogard, owner of the Parisian Bazaar); Jay C. Flippen (The Sailor) and Stepin Fetchit (The Waiter). Leslie Fenton is virtually unrecognizable as the Japanese General Tenoki, a dealer in curios; while Helen Morgan as Tapia sings a couple of unmemorable songs, "The Song of a Dreamer" and "It Serves Me Right for Treating You Wrong" Look fast for the uncredited J. Carroll Naish playing a French speaking painting sailor.

A real obscure item from Fox Studios that began to surface on public television in 1997, MARIE GALANTE might have remained forgotten in some dark film archive had it starred contract actors as Edmund Lowe or Warner Baxter in the Tracy part. Through the presence of two-time Academy Award winning actor Spencer Tracy shortly before his improved motion picture career for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1935-1955) took effect does MARIE GALANTE serve any interest to contemporary viewers. Of the very few Hollywood movies featuring Ketti Gallian, only SHALL WE DANCE (RKO Radio, 1937) starring Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers (where she has a secondary role) is known to have numerous television broadcasts over the years. Though blonde in MARIE GALANTE, she was brunette in SHALL WE DANCE.

The plot material for MARIE GALANTE was reworked again in CHARLIE CHAN IN PANAMA (20th Century-Fox, 1940) starring Sidney Toler as Chan. While the original adaptation is a showcase for Ketti Gallian, who doesn't acquire all the attention during its full 88 minutes, other actors get to take part in this espionage story as well. Overlooking some slow spots, MARIE GALANTE rises above its limitations through numerous quick reaction shots from observers; dialogue spoken through the extreme loud noise of machinery in the Powerhouse; and some fine suspenseful moments. Availability for viewing on either video cassette, DVD, and on-demand from cable television's MGM Plus. (**1/2)