Pan-Americana

Jane Greer's first film.

The film is a series of flashbacks as Charlie tells a story at the beginning of the premiere of a new stage show starring "Miss Pan-American" and featuring about 20 Pan-American beauties. Each flashback ends with a performance that is being projected onto a movie screen at the theater. After the first two flashbacks, Charlie appears briefly to list the countries they visited in-between flashbacks. After the final flashback, the movie screen rises directly to a Mexican dance performance as the other beauties hold flags and watch. The end. Problems with this framing include the lack of any motion picture photography happening in the scenes leading up to each flashback's closing performance. The four main characters were on a whirlwind tour to take still photos in 21 countries over 7 weeks and were never shown interacting with any film crews. Also, Charlie's explanation of the genesis of the stage show and the total time of the performance clips takes much more time than the one live performance closing the show. That's a pretty lame excuse for a stage production, especially after going through all the expense and paperwork to transport over 20 ladies from their respective nations. And they never bother to announce which of the women is Miss Pan-American(!).

Featured in The RKO Story: Tales from Hollywood: It's All True (1987)