Sensation Hunters

A gaggle of seasoned showgirls board a luxury liner bound for jobs in Panama and the "newbie" among them falls for one of the passengers but it's a rocky road to love for a good girl stranded in the tropics...

SENSATION HUNTERS isn't as cheap as later Monogram features but the only "sensation" I saw was in the film's provocative poster -unless, of course, you're wild about clichés. The eclectic cast was the selling point for me and I wasn't disappointed; sassy Arline Judge (the lady in red on the poster) as a wise-cracking, thrice-married cabaret entertainer ("a sailor's delight") was the nominal star but she played second fiddle to the heroine (the boring Marion Burns) and was no less of a firecracker off-screen, having been married eight times. Cocaine addiction ruined the career of silent screen serial queen Juanita Hansen and according to "Hollywood Babylon", she later got religion and went on cross-country bible-thumping tours denouncing drugs. She must have gotten over that because here she is in this as a blowzy "Texas Guinan"- type and, like fellow Mack Sennett bathing beauty Marie Prevost, she'd packed on a few pounds by the time talkies took over. There's even a couple of cheesy song & dance routines as Preston Foster, Kenneth MacKenna, and Walter Brennan (as a stuttering waiter) look on agog. Directed by Charles Vidor who'd later become a house director for Columbia, the little studio that could.