Sammy-Jo Cervantes There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Aneesa Wardle The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Yazmin Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

MartinHafer This film begins with society girl, Kay Kerrigan (Joan Bennett), shooting a no-good rich guy for destroying her sister. She soon is on the run and leaves the US. Because the dead guy was very rich and had a well-connected family, they pay detectives to follow her around the globe to bring her to justice. One of them, Sam Wye (Frederic March) finds that instead of bringing her back, he's tempted to just take off with her. When she is caught, he acts like a heel to throw off suspicion and ends up capturing the real killers--even though this sure seems like we saw her kill the cad!It's pretty amazing. You've got some fine actors (particular Frederic March and Ralph Bellamy) and yet here they look awful. I blame most of it on the dumb dialog but the direction certainly left a lot to be desired. Add to that an over-extensive use of badly realized rear projection, and you've got an amazingly disappointing film. Want an example of the bad dialog?(talking about Colombo, Sri Lanka):"Colombo---that's in Ohio!"

duke1029 "Trade Winds" has some enjoyable moments. This Tay Garnett-directed independent feature has the beautiful and talented Joan Bennett as a murderess on the run in the Orient pursued by a skirt-chasing former policeman played by a very miscast Fredric March. The film veers from whodunit, to travelogue, to screwball comedy, to romance, to courtroom drama without much consistency. Because the major emphasis is on comedy and romance, the film needs the versatility of a Fred MacMurray in the lead. Although a fine actor, March is out of his element in a role that requires a lighter touch. The usually reliable Ralph Bellamy, who excelled as the proverbial light comic "other man" in classics like "His Girl Friday," "The Awful Truth," and "Brother Orchid," ends up as an oafish buffoon of a policeman of the type often played by Edgar or Tom Kennedy. His performance clashes with March's and at times he seems out of an alternative universe. Although Ann Sothern has a very enjoyable drunk scene, she's underutilized, and the usually reliable Thomas Mitchell is given little to do but growl as a police commissioner... wasted in a role than would have usually gone to a William Frawley. The film's inconsistencies are likely the fault of writer/director Tay Garnett, who had a lengthy but inconsistent career resume' with at least one masterpiece ("The Postman Always Rings Twice") to his credit. He did helm some films with similar elements to "Trade Winds": "One Way Passage" with Powell and Francis, "Seven Sinners" with Dietrich and Wayne, and "China Seas" with Gable and Harlow, but unfortunately Garnett never developed a consistent style, and by the 1950s he was directing TV Western series episodes like "Death Valley Days" and "Bonanza". With a steadier hand like a Howard Hawks at the helm, and more appropriate cast choices "Trade Winds" may have been a minor classic, but now it's just a curiosity. By the way, two interesting sidebars: Dorothy Parker (of Algonquin Round Table fame) was a collaborator on the script and the enigmatic Dorothy Comingore appears briefly here (under the name Linda Winters) several years before her triumph in "Citizen Kane."

max von meyerling This is an amusing little trifle. No more or no less. A charming cast, a fast pace, snappy dialog, charming players, a very silly story and a naked and unexplained denouement. The film started with the footage Tay Garnett made during a round-the-world sail. Or at least as far as Bombay sail. What to do with this footage? Dorothy Parker and sometime husband Alan Campbell, and Frank Adams, an ex-reporter and music composer who co-wrote I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now concocted a story about a classy broad who thinks she shot and killed a man and escapes San Francisco by going west to Hawaii, Japan, China, etc. She is being chased by the World's Greatest Detective, the dumbest flatfoot on the force who never-the- less is high ranking, and said detectives secretary. So you see the background shots are used as the backgrounds of all the places they go. Miss Parker is responsible for some mighty clever lines, lines which gave Ann Southern a whole career.This was produced by independent producer Walter Wanger who released through United Artists. Wanger could do what he wanted and obtained the services of Frederick March who had previously acted in a Parker script A Star Is Born for independent producer David Selznick. March's agent was David's brother Myron. Joan Bennett was married to Walter Wanger and perhaps the most famous or even important aspect of this film is that Joan went brunette in this film and never went back. As they say. Ralph Bellamy was stuck in the middle of a career where he would get scripts to read in which characters were described as "Ralph Bellamy type". His name in the film "Blodgett" was the same as the want to be star in A Star is Born. Getting failed "B" actress Ann Southern from nowhere was brilliant. No doubt the 4' 11" Parker used the 5' 1" Southern as an avatar for her whit, especially her smart-woman-in-a- man's-world be-bop. Blodgett is a direct rip off of Shakespeare's Dogberry from Much Ado About Nothing (which might be a title suitable for this film). Sidney Blackmer is featured and appears in one scene and is out of there faster than you can say Janet Leigh. Tommy Mitchell is in two scenes, both shot on the same set, and is also featured. Wanger padding out the cast for the price of two days work.The ending is maddening. The murder is revealed to prove Bennett's innocence in the first ten minutes but the film just goes on as if nobody heard. Of course in those days people didn't worry about such things as extradition or jurisdictions so our detectives go off in pursuit. The put-upon secretary goes on after them. March and Bennett fall in love and Bennett is betrayed and sent to trial. A trap is set for the real murderer based on the idea that they will be the people who don't show up at a party. Only they do show up at the party or else there wouldn't be a climax. The thing is the murderer, the backstory, the motive or even who these people are is never explained. I guess its not really important as the story skims along purely on the surface, sort of like the drama skims in front the back projections from Garnett's journey. Everybody, that is movie goers, knew the context of film conventions. They could connect the dots. At one point March buys a ticket from a cabin on a departing ship under the name Mr. & Mrs. Jones and Bellamy and Southern are tricked into taking it. So they decide to get married. A Dorothy Parker joke. The sets are by Alexander Toluboff and a young Alexander Golitzen and the cinematography by the matchless Rudolph Maté. Garnett never made a stupid film or directed a bad scene so Wanger did his job correctly and hired the best people for his film.I guess today the film from the journey is more valuable than the negative and rights to Trade Winds. It shows a world which no longer exists and that is priceless.

stltape I like romantic comedies, mysteries, and adventure films. Trade Winds is a combination of all three. Fredric March plays a San Francisco private detective who is hired by the police department to follow and arrest Joan Bennett,who is believed to be guilty of a murder and has fled across the Pacific Ocean. She is very good looking so they send a department detective, Ralph Bellamy, with him to make sure he brings her back when he catches up with her. Ralph Bellamy never knows quite what is going on and supplies some comical moments through out the picture.In one scene, at a race track, he asks Fredric March, would you like to see your sister bet on a horse? Fredric March replied, my sister is a horse. Fredric March of course falls in love with Joan Bennett and then has to prove her innocent.