This movie was made right in the heart of the period when Hollywood was using one road-tested plot and just switching location and names and the fact that Jerry Wald - widely believed to be the prototype for Sammy Glick in Budd Schulberg's What Makes Sammy Run- is credited as producer adds credence as Wald was noted for 'stealing' ideas, plots, and/or anything that wasn't nailed down. Other posters have viewed this as The Front Page in drag but I find more parallels with the previous year's Only Angels Have Wings; tropical setting, incompetent professional (Cowan, Barthelmess) married to joint love interest (Vinson, Hayworth), 'adventuress' (Arthur, Sheridan) allowed to remain only on sufferance, plus outside factors (bandits, weather) affecting the efficiency of US-owned interests (bananas, mail). Hawks' movie had a classier cast - Cary Grant, Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth, Thomas Mitchell - than Keithley's and overall was the classier movie but Torrid Zone gives almost as good as it gets and should not be dismissed lightly.
Review of Torrid Zone
