Watch Panama Lady For Free

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

You know what confused me about this film? The idiotic notion that McTeague, the male lead, would coerce Lucy to come with him to his South American hideaway to serve as his housekeeper, when he already had Cheema, another female housekeeper, in residence at his relatively small house. And it seemed even more ridiculous that the two housekeepers would get into several jealous and potentially deadly conflicts.Then it suddenly entered my thick head: They're his PROSTITUTES, you moron! It's a post-Code movie, so the writers had to portray Lucy and Cheema as a couple of chaste "housekeepers" who were getting into fights over which one of them would polish McTeague's banister.After that, the movie made much more sense.Lucille Ball is gorgeous in this film, almost Lauren Bacall-ish in many of the shots. Her character is the polar opposite of the Lucy Ricardo we all know and love. This Lucy is chronically depressed, more than a little whorish, and not the slightest bit funny. Her character would probably be a drug addict and/or alcoholic if the movie were re-made today. And, with her incredible talent, Lucille Ball pulls it off beautifully, and makes you forget the I Love Lucy she later became.At first I was put off by Alan Lane's performance as McTeague, which I initially found nebulous and unclear. But after the film was over, I was impressed with his performance, for precisely the same reasons. It was McTeague's somewhat schizophrenic personality that actually made the movie work. And although I don't recall ever seeing Steffi Duna before, her Cheema character was exotic and intriguing. Again, her behavior was hard to pin down at first, but made more sense at the end.Kudos also to the production and direction team, who applied a few very creative touches. Notable among those is the scene that was shot from the blindfolded Lucy's perspective, and the camera shifting to Cheema's shadow while she was doing something shadowy.Hey guys, this movie's only an hour long. Why not give it a shot? And even if it isn't making a lot of sense at first, try to stick with it. If you're like me, the payoff will be worth the relatively short investment of time.

First off, even though I saw the film some years ago, I can't forget Evelyn Brent's electric performance in a supporting role in which she manages to steal every scene from the star throughout the movie's first half. In fact, as I recall, Lucy just wisely keeps a low profile in her appearances with Ms. Brent, who is just too much to compete with. But finally her character takes a final exit. After that Lucy does come alive as the star and shines from then on, rising above the mediocre material of this B- film. And Lucy Recardo she is not! What I like most is Lucy's line at the story's high-point: "I'm going to take just one more crack at making a gentleman out of you, and if that doesn't work, we're really in trouble!"

If you watch this film, you'll no doubt be surprised how dull and listless this film is. After all, only a little over a decade later, the star of this film, Lucille Ball, would be declared the funniest lady in America. Well, none of this is evident in this movie at all. It isn't funny (nor is it intended to be) and the movie just isn't a quality effort at all. This isn't just because this is a B-movie-- after all, there are some marvelous B-pictures that transcend their modest budgets. No, the problem is that the characters just aren't very likable or believable and the script is just dull and, at times, stupid. Now as far as the stupidity of the script goes, this was really obvious towards the end. The whole way in which Lucy's evil boyfriend is shot is just pure hooey--so much so that it's almost laughable. Then, at the very end, despite it being obvious that the other man is desperately in love with her, a decent guy and very rich, Lucy tries to wander off into the crowd and forget him! Heck, I would have been thrilled to have married him (and I'm a guy)!

Most of her admirers do not realize that for many years prior to her TV career, Lucille Ball was a very competent, dishy, and prolific motion picture actress. This particular opus, though both sordid and incredible, does present Miss Ball, with billing over the title, in an undoubtedly bizarre concoction, that has, for whatever reason, been strangely overlooked for many years. Most interesting perhaps is that her character's name is "Lucy,"(the first time Miss Ball ever portrayed a character with that name--though this particular 'Lucy' has nothing in common with Mrs. Ricardo.)Essentially it is celluloid pulp fiction detailing the romantic and criminal mis-adventures of a New York show girl reduced to dancing in the floor show of a Panamanian dive. While thus employed, she is innocently implicated in the robbery of a drunken oil prospector, who only drops jail charges, if she will agree to become his live in--"housekeeper." Enter true love here.The illicit and licentious angles of the story, with its strong intimations of prostitution at the dive, and free-love at the prospector's camp, (with a interloper-native girl named "Cheema" no less), are unmistakably suggested, through "Sadie Thompson" style dialogue and atmosphere. For example, one of the "B girls", named Pearl, decked in cheap jewelry over a flowered frock, achieves unparalleled camp value with her lowered eyelids, hands on the hips swagger as she moves in for the kill--greeting her would be conquest with the highly original, "Hello handsome." RKO's technical accoutrements, as would be expected, are A-1, though this is clearly a second feature. Miss Ball plays a decent and attractive doll, who retains her virtue, despite being forced to tramp the streets or the pampas, as the case would have it, (perhaps owing to her lack of education--she proudly mis-pronounces "petroleum" as "petoleum" !Though much of the dialogue is painfully stereotypical, (Cheema witnessing a murder, declaims in threateningly thick accents with finger pointed accusingly, "Cheema tell tribe!" the story manages to engage by sheer force of its outrageous plot. Even better, is Evelyn Brent, as the madame "Lenore" (with a trollopish wardrobe that anticipates Carol Burnett as "Eunice") who gets such enunciate such subtleties as "...Be nice to Mr. McTeague Lucy or I'll fire you!"With such dialogue as this it would appear the script is written by and for idiots, but, lo and behold, it's by Michael Kanin who later penned Katherine Hepburn's "Woman of the Year," (surely Mr. Kanin your tongue was firmly in your cheek?) Despite her perpetually impecunious state,Miss Ball's character somehow manages a nifty array of outfits, that includes a white sharkskin suit, and a wool blazer, skirt, grosgain pumps, and trilby hat ensemble, that, assuredly would have been the envy of most Gotham girls that were "down and out" in 1939.Yes, Miss Ball is plenty attractive here, though to witness her at the peak of her pulchritude, check out "Beauty for the Asking" also from 1939.All in all though, with its blend of simmering sin, and triumphant virtue, as laid out in both the South American and Manhattan jungles, "Panama Lady" is really rather fun as an outrageous camp fest. Enjoy.