According to the Citadel Film series book The Films Of Ronald Reagan, the Gipper signed with Pine-Thomas productions to do this film because of the fact they gave him his first starring western. Reagan was a fine horseman and would love to have made a few westerns when he was in his salad days at Warner Brothers. But Jack Warner other than in Santa Fe Trail wouldn't put him in them. Pine-Thomas who did the B pictures at Paramount put Reagan in The Last Outpost and it became a favorite film of his. And there wasn't too much out there available when the studios started letting go of their contract players.
The book characterizes Tropic Zone as a western with a tropic setting. Reagan plays a two fisted adventurer who got on the wrong side of a revolution in one Central American country and had to flee to another without passport. A fact that villain John Weingraf holds over him. Rhonda Fleming who owns a banana plantation needs a strong foreman to replace the drunken Grant Withers and Reagan fills the bill and in other ways as well even though Estelita Rodriguez has her eye on him.
Watching the film I suddenly remembered where I had seen this plot before and it was in a John Wayne western War Of The Wildcats. There instead of bananas it was oil as Wayne led a caravan just like Reagan does here to meet a deadline and get a contract for Fleming and not incidentally to get Fleming.
Estelita Rodriguez sings both a Spanish and English version of the Jay Livingston-Ray Evans song I'll Always Love You that Dean Martin introduced in My Friend Irma Goes West. I kind of prefer what Dino did with the song.
As Reagan and Fleming had similar politics the two must have gotten along fabulously. In fact she was his leading lady in several films of the Fifties.
Tropic Zone began his career as an independent player. His films after this were competent enough, but mostly routine and this is no exception.
The book characterizes Tropic Zone as a western with a tropic setting. Reagan plays a two fisted adventurer who got on the wrong side of a revolution in one Central American country and had to flee to another without passport. A fact that villain John Weingraf holds over him. Rhonda Fleming who owns a banana plantation needs a strong foreman to replace the drunken Grant Withers and Reagan fills the bill and in other ways as well even though Estelita Rodriguez has her eye on him.
Watching the film I suddenly remembered where I had seen this plot before and it was in a John Wayne western War Of The Wildcats. There instead of bananas it was oil as Wayne led a caravan just like Reagan does here to meet a deadline and get a contract for Fleming and not incidentally to get Fleming.
Estelita Rodriguez sings both a Spanish and English version of the Jay Livingston-Ray Evans song I'll Always Love You that Dean Martin introduced in My Friend Irma Goes West. I kind of prefer what Dino did with the song.
As Reagan and Fleming had similar politics the two must have gotten along fabulously. In fact she was his leading lady in several films of the Fifties.
Tropic Zone began his career as an independent player. His films after this were competent enough, but mostly routine and this is no exception.