Even putting aside the film's tendency to switch moods on a dime in an incongruous mixture - adventure, comedy, drama, but never all together - watching 'Torrid zone' in 2021 is a very different experience than I assume it would have generally been in 1940. There is cleverness in the writing, and some humor in the dialogue, and in the exaggerated characters and performances (especially Andy Devine as Wally). At the same time, the person the narrative would set up to be the antagonist is sympathetic, while the male figures centered as protagonists are not. We also get chauvinism and outright misogyny, police corruption and overreach, capitalist corruption and power grabs. And these are all just themes and flourishes in a narrative where the largest running thread is corporate profits as an end goal, as opposed to the autonomy and self-governance of the people, and the second largest thread is a love interest present mainly to add another spark to the story.
All the indelicacies and mismatched flavors would be fine if the feature were nonetheless consistently entertaining, but I'm not sure that's the case. We get amusement offered in a witty script, situational comedy that comes and goes, and a few sight gags, but it's a light touch that fails to meaningfully comport with the other facets of the title. The pace is overly swift, plot development is incomplete as it comes, and the writing of characters feels like at most a tertiary concern. Performances are strong, but sometimes too forceful - to the point that Pat O'Brien, in his portrayal, is as emphatically unlikable as his character - and feel somewhat hollow in recognition of the deficient writing of the parts. And each passing scene, in conjuration and in realization alike, is like the overall narrative: full of personality, but no real heart; peppered throughout with distasteful overtones, and notions of entertainment that aren't "solid" so much as they are "gelatinous."
I like the care put into set design and decoration, costume design, hair and makeup, and all such "behind the scenes" contributions. I think there are good ideas in the screenplay. Those ideas do not coalesce into a cohesive, convincing whole. I wouldn't go so far as to say that 'Torrid zone' is bad, but it's very simply not put together well, not nearly as enjoyable as it could have been - and not nearly as enjoyable as many, many other movies one could watch instead. For whatever strength they each possess individually, the various components just don't fit together the way they should, and the end result is frankly a bit middling. You could do a lot worse than 'Torrid zone,' but unless one has a specific interest in some element of the production, there's just no reason to seek this out.
All the indelicacies and mismatched flavors would be fine if the feature were nonetheless consistently entertaining, but I'm not sure that's the case. We get amusement offered in a witty script, situational comedy that comes and goes, and a few sight gags, but it's a light touch that fails to meaningfully comport with the other facets of the title. The pace is overly swift, plot development is incomplete as it comes, and the writing of characters feels like at most a tertiary concern. Performances are strong, but sometimes too forceful - to the point that Pat O'Brien, in his portrayal, is as emphatically unlikable as his character - and feel somewhat hollow in recognition of the deficient writing of the parts. And each passing scene, in conjuration and in realization alike, is like the overall narrative: full of personality, but no real heart; peppered throughout with distasteful overtones, and notions of entertainment that aren't "solid" so much as they are "gelatinous."
I like the care put into set design and decoration, costume design, hair and makeup, and all such "behind the scenes" contributions. I think there are good ideas in the screenplay. Those ideas do not coalesce into a cohesive, convincing whole. I wouldn't go so far as to say that 'Torrid zone' is bad, but it's very simply not put together well, not nearly as enjoyable as it could have been - and not nearly as enjoyable as many, many other movies one could watch instead. For whatever strength they each possess individually, the various components just don't fit together the way they should, and the end result is frankly a bit middling. You could do a lot worse than 'Torrid zone,' but unless one has a specific interest in some element of the production, there's just no reason to seek this out.