This dreamy half sheet poster was made for the adventure Marie Galante, which starred French actress Ketti Gallian as the title character, and Spencer Tracy as the male lead. In the plot, Gallian gets trapped aboard a cargo ship bound from France to Hong Kong. She never gets there. She’s dumped in Mexico, and eventually winds up reaching the Panama Canal Zone, where she takes a gig singing in a café. Because of language problems she quickly manages to get tangled in an espionage caper initiated by spies who want to sabotage the canal. Tracy is trying to foil the plot and is soon romancing Gallian. Marie Galante isn’t bad judged solely on its adventure aspects, but parts may be too cringeful for you to watch.
The problem is there’s glaringly racist content included at the expense of Stepin Fetchit, aka Lincoln Perry, regular punching bag in anti-black gags from the era. There was a time when he was ridiculed in the black community, but that view has evolved somewhat as people have come to understand that he had no choice if he wanted to work in movies. Many of the old black film performers, some of whom had been bitten by the acting bug while working on Vaudeville, persevered through terrible film roles in hopes of better down the line. For the most part, down the line never arrived. Perry did become very famous, but at a high cost. Marie Galante premiered in the U.S. today in 1934.
