This is the first film I've seen of Tallulah Bankhead's. Her powerhouse personality is rather damped down here, but there's still plenty of allure on display. The hothouse melodrama she's stuck in revolves around a triangle between Charles Bickford, a rough and macho hunter for oil headquartered in a tiny South American village, his wife Tallulah, and Paul Lukas, a German who was Bickford's prisoner during WWI, then his friend and now his assistant. Bickford is the kind of guy who, as the film opens, comes home after a long trip on the river and then a long hike back through the jungle, only to embrace his wife passionately, ending with her face right in his armpit. You can kind of understand how she would, er,"sour" on the guy...especially since Bankhead is such a sultry, elegant presence. Lukas is attractive, but at times a bit difficult to understand with his heavy accent, due to the still not too advanced sound technology. This is also the only time I think you would be able to see rotund Eugene Palette, that staple of 30's screwball comedies, playing a bizarre spanking game (thankfully, fully clothed) in a tavern. I can't remember another female in the whole movie, other than a few in the tavern scene,so Bankhead had the field all to herself and, through it all, she's fabulous, with her "chola" eyebrows, throaty whiskey-and-cigarettes voice, soulful glances and slinky 30's high-fashion wardrobe. This film, and I would think all of her rare film appearances, is worthwhile just to catch her.
Review of Thunder Below
