South of Panama

Roger Pryor is a reporter who's just flown into Panama. Saloon singer Virginia Vale meets him at the airport, kisses him and says to come along with her. She's there to meet her brother, Hugh Beaumont, who's just invented a paint to make planes invisible, but she's spotted a tail and figured that spies are out to snatch him for the secret. She's right, too. Later she puts on a wig and a Spanish accent and she's unrecognizable.

Actually, the script is a lot better than that; once you've accepted that the script works -- and there's a demonstration -- it make sense. It's the first movie credits for writers Ben Roberts and Sidney Sheldon. They would break up as a team, and Sheldon would win an Oscar in 1947 and devise I DREAM OF JEANNIE; Roberts would go on to create CHARLIE'S ANGELS. There's some excitement, some good humor under the direction of Jean Yarborough, some hokey stuff -- Sam McDaniel plays a stereotypical Black waiter -- and a car chase through the rugged mountains roads of the Canal Zone. If you can ignore those and Pryor's indifferent line readings, there's some fun here.