Search - Marie Galante/Spencer Tracy on Film on DVD

The gallant Tracy and the Gallic Galante

Annie Van Auken | Planet Earth | 12/26/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"MARIE GALANTE is a 1934 movie with interesting connections to the coming World War. This espionage tale is set in Central America and involves citizens of France, Germany, Britain, Japan and the USA. There's also a plot to sink the American fleet as it passes through the Panama Canal-- an eerie foreshadowing of the Dec. '41 Pearl Harbor attack.

Marie (Gallian) is taken against her will to Mexico by an inebriated sea captain. She works her way down the coast seeking return passage to her native France. At the Canal Zone, Marie takes a singing job and meets an American doctor (Tracy) who's researching tropical diseases. She also becomes acquainted with a British diplomat, a German businessman and his Japanese competitor. Marie learns that the doctor is actually a secret agent trying to foil a plot to destroy the Canal and U.S.N. fleet. (Watch for singer Helen Morgan, who's typecast as a drunken barroom chanteuse.)


ALPHA VIDEO is a provider of vintage movies, serials and TV programs, many of which aren't available elsewhere. Their prices are fair, but so is transfer quality of some of their offerings. None have undergone restoration, yet the market scarcity of their material and an honest price make these DVDs a worthwhile purchase.

Also from ALPHA:
The interesting cast in SPECIAL AGENT (1949) includes George Reeves (TV's "Superman") as a train robber!


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.

(6.1) Marie Galante (1934) - Spencer Tracy/Ketti Gallian/Ned Sparks/Helen Morgan/Sig Ruman/Leslie Fenton/Arthur Byron/Robert Loraine/Frank Darien (uncredited: Stepin Fetchit/Jay C. Flippen/J. Carrol Naish)"