Trade Winds 1938 with Fredric March, Joan Bennett, Ralph Bellamy, and Ann Southern.

In the early 1940's a New York City Revue had a lyric that was very timely, "Let's talk of Lamarr, that Hedy so fair/Is it true that Joan Bennett wears all her old hair?" Rarely has an actress's screen career been so clearly defined by her hair coloring. During her blonde period Joan was a pert, poised, vapid ingenue who made the transfer from bit roles in silent films to leading lady roles in talkies with relative ease. After all, was not her father the Broadway matinee idol Richard Bennett, and her mother the captivating Broadway actress Adrienne Morrison? On rare occasions, contra-casting, as in Me And My Gal (1932, Fox), proved that beneath her porcelain-doll veneer the girl had a gutsy personality. Infrequent excursions into class screen dramas, such as Little Women (1933, RKO) and Private Worlds (1935, Paramount), sustained the rumor that Joan was not Constance's magnolia-drenched little sister. But for most of the 1930's Joan was required by her studio to follow a tedious course as a one-dimensional screen lovely. Like Loretta Young, she was more noted for her extravagant movie wardrobes and the quantity rather the quality of her celluloid efforts. Joan's movie career might have artistically been frustrating, but her social life was A-1, as she was a glittering part of the most elite movie colony party swirl. In this ambiance she fostered a relationship with movie producer Walter Wanger, who not only guided her film career but became her husband and the father of their two daughters. In the film Trade Winds (1938, United Artists), Joan changes from blonde to her natural color which was brunette. Her husband Producer Walter Wanger had produced the film Algiers (1938, United Artists), which was the screen debut of Hedy Lamarr and afterwards when Lamarr became a screen sensation, Wanger thought that Joan would attract the same attention. This hair color change did more than just accentuate Joan's naturally good facial-bone structure it gave her a more alluring screen presence now there was a sense of danger or perhaps menace. With Bennett becoming the quintessential Femme Fatale in Film Noir of the late 1940's especially working with Fritz Lang.