White Legion (1936) Online

Now that Panamanian cinema has had its first screen hit with "Historias del canal" (2014), many of us have realized that there is indeed an endless amount of stories to tell about the Panama Canal, not only during the 20th century when the United States helped the Department of Panamá to separate from Colombia in order to build and control the canal, but from the day someone visualized its route, connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (I do not know who did, but it probably happened in the 16th century) to the frustrated attempt by the French Canal Company, which was the reason why the word "Panamá" was synonym of "evil eye" among the French, due to the large amounts of money lost by those who invested in the work of the viscount Ferdinand de Lesseps. Consequently different sectors of the American film industry began to film those stories: when the sound era began, while "Marie Galante" (1934) was made by Fox, minor studios as Grand National Pictures and Producers Releasing Corporation also released their own products. PRC made the war thriller "South of Panama" (1941), which has a small cult; and from Grand National came two: "White Legion" (1936) and "Panama Patrol", good examples of those curious fabrications. Written and directed by Karl Brown, who was once D.W. Griffith's ex-assistant, "White Legion" is a bad melodrama about the struggle of Americans who were in charge of the construction, to control yellow fever, a disease that had already decimated thousands of workers of the French Canal Company. It was produced with five pennies by Benjamin F. Zeidman (check his biography in Wikipedia), an enterprising businessman who had joined the film industry when he was 14 years old. However Zeidman did not consider that to properly tell Brown's story he needed more economic resources, so the cash limitation became insuperable evidence. The lush humid tropical flora of the zone, the magnitude of the mechanical extraction of soil being done, the consolidation of American military power in the future Canal Zone and the copious documentation of scientific research of yellow fever, were ignored and turned instead into an unfortunate studio-bound production of small, cheap sets. But if the low budget was a handicap, there were other elements against the production. First, Brown's screenplay is loaded with long dialog scenes (one or two with a couple of witty lines) and it is betrayed by the silly purpose of making a propaganda version of the scientific work, in favor of an American middle-age hunk doctor (Ian Keith), with a highly unlikely solution to end the plague. Then, Brown's mise-en- scene mostly consists of fixed, endless, single takes, in spite of cinematographer Harry Jackson's efforts to add shadows and props to decorate the frame. And last and worst of all (especially for a Panamanian audience) Brown turned to tired Mexican stereotypes to represent Panamá, and homogenize everything "Latino" into a single mold, even when they try to add some "local flavor" by using the Panamanian folk tune "El tambor de la alegría" in a fiesta sequence. A year after the release of "White Legion" South African scientist Max Theiler succeeded in developing a vaccine for yellow fever, but Zeidman and Grand National did not give up and re-released their turkey with the sensationalist title, "The Hell- Hole Named Panama".

"White Legion" is a movie about some very brave and important people. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the movie, the average person probably won't...mostly because of how they tell this story. It's a cheapo production...and should have been better.

The story is all about Yellow Fever and the efforts of scientists to irradicate it....otherwise, the Panama Canal never could have been completed AND the ships never would want to go through such a zone of pestilence. The characters in the story champion Pasteur's germ theory and ultimately are successful. However, in telling this story, they included a few dopey characters (such as the Senator and his daughter) in a feeble attempt to make the story more interesting....and simply telling it without all the melodrama would have made for a better and more realistic portrayal of these events.

You'll find a couple of good lines in this fuzzy old movie about yellow fever and the Panama Canal in 1905.

A wounded captain has a slug removed from his back. Surgeon: "There it is. A nasty little .38." Captain: "Felt like a horse and carriage coming out of there." After a riot is subdued, an officer shouts, "Anyone here ever been a non-commissioned officer?" An exhausted soldier replies: "I was corporal once. Got busted. Couldn't stand the prosperity." Nothing is made of these mini-witticisms. They're just sprinkled randomly throughout the script.

The problem is that the workers on the canal are all getting sick from yellow fever. Nobody knows much about insect vectors. Those who are in hospital believe that the Army believes the disease is contagious and they're going to kill everyone who is ill, just as they do with cattle that have hoof and mouth disease. Everything is a mess.

I won't get too deeply into the plot. The colonel seals off the canal zone after allowing a team of half a dozen experts in. The experts include two Germans and one Japanese. (This is 1936, and anyway science is supposed to transcend nationality.) Also trapped are a politician (Senator Blank) and his pretty daughter.

For such a little-known and relatively inexpensive production, the crew are pretty keen. The young, blond Dr. Stern, Tala Birell, is attracted to the hero, Ian Keith. Senator Blank's daughter, returning from an outing, flutters her eyes at Keith over the dinner table. Birell picks it up at once and yanks Blank's daughter off to an "anti-septic bath" before she begins eating. "I'll help you," she says sharply. And there's an incident involving the fake whipping of one of the scientists, Dr. Nogi, that displays considerable tact. Later, there's an unusual graphic sequence resembling the inside of a twirling kaleidoscope as seen by somebody on mushrooms.

There are structural flaws in the script. The mechanism of transmission should have been explained in rough detail near the opening, not two thirds of the way through. And the experiment that Ian Keith performs on himself and Senator Blank's daughter is unclear, even now, to me. When Keith is ill, he's treated by Tala Birell, who gives him a transfusion of her own blood. "We thought it might help." But Keith was damned lucky because blood types had only been identified a few years earlier, and only 3 out of the 4. If she'd had the wrong type, it would have been the end of Keith.

These weaknesses are basic and they don't do the movie any good, despite its other virtues. It's still worth a watch. Theatrics aside, it's convincing in its portrayal of part of the fight against yellow fever in Panama. Walter Reed had already done the preparatory work in Cuba.

Alpha Video provides a valuable service for cinéastes through its fresh release of vintage films. However, as these are not remastered, not all are in good condition, some having soured over time. Nonetheless, Alpha offers new art work, as well as informative liner notes for these films, despite their ofttimes sub-par audio and visual quality. The history of the Panama Canal's construction supplies the background for this film. Following the fruitless efforts of France to complete the project, that was broken off due to the deaths, from yellow fever, of tens of thousands of imported contract laborers, an exceptional medical team, under U.S. leadership, isolated, and then destroyed the disease's carrier, the common mosquito. One-time matinée idol Ian Keith is cast as leader of the research team, an internationally flavoured collection of not inconsiderable scientific expertise. However, a large portion of his efforts are employed to show the way for available U.S. military personnel to coat local waters with oil as means of stymying mosquito movements, including breeding. Keith has the lead here, but merely walks through his turn with a dour performance. Slipping past him is the talented Tala Birell who is given the best passage of the film: when Keith's character tries to become more friendly with Birell's (Dr.Stern), he inquires "Dr. Stern! Is there a first name?" Her reply - "Doctor". Surely this is one of the most perfect squelches within the annals of cinema history. Gathering in the performing laurels here is veteran character actor Rollo Lloyd for a strongly defined Colonel, military commander of the Canal Zone's troops. He effectively handles a disturbance caused by unruly military personnel along with civilians who wish to avoid rules and regulations. Longwhile D. W. Griffith assistant Karl Brown is the director, with his efforts being undermined by his own screenplay, a disordered mixture composed of drama, action, romance and comedy. This makes for an unconvincing storyline, although the script is consistently handled throughout the affair. In sum, the film is denied that which it sorely needs, a secure hand at the helm, to highlight the drama within the story in order to outline the events of a fairly recent period (at the time of the work's release, only about 30 years prior); a missed opportunity, indeed!