Tropic Zone (film)

Plot

Reagan's character, Dan McCloud, is an American (described as a "soldier of fortune" in the publicity for the picture's release) who becomes the foreman of a Central American banana plantation. Learning that his employer, Lukats, is corrupt and trying to corner the market, McCloud joins with one of the smaller growers (played by Rhonda Fleming) to organize the workers and stop Lukats' scheme.

Reagan later dismissed this film as a "sand and banana" picture with a "hopeless" script.

Cast

Production

Paramount built a large set for the film, reportedly the studio's biggest new set in ten years. Designed by art director A. Earl Hedrick together with studio supervisor Hal Pereira, and covering four stages, the set depicted "a complete Caribbean native village", with "16 buildings, irrigation ditches, five hilltops, a schoolhouse, two roads, two streams, a complicated powerhouse" and more. Edith Head, who had already won the first four of her eight Academy Awards, handled the costumes for the film, highlighted by Fleming's fourteen different outfits, all of them in "jungle tones".