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Red Dust

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RED DUST has become a classic primarily because of the romantic teaming of Gable and Harlow in roles perfectly suited to his virile charm and her unique brand of earthy humour. The sexy team generated a lot of chemistry between them and the public was enthralled! Dennis Carson (Clark) manages a rubber plantation in Indochina. Vantine (Jean) is a shrewd, wisecracking blonde tart with a heart of gold who shows up unexpectedly and her sardonic wit is rampant throughout the film. Gable as the stalwart plantation overseer further solidified his reputation as a romantic leading man - but it's Harlow's portrayal of Vantine which really lingers in the memory. Shrewd, brassy, honest and sensuous, she is the quintessential tart with a golden heart; this is one of her prime roles. Mary Astor does okay in her role as the lady-like Barbara whereas Gene Raymond's interpretation of her husband verges on being trite as he hero worships Gable (until the conclusion). The Chinese houseboy would not be seen in todays films but Donald Crisp and Tully Marshall are fine as the guys who share their quarters with Dennis. Victor Fleming, who had persuaded a reluctant Gable to accept the role of Dennis skillfully directed the film with a primary emphasis on characterisation and atmosphere - the result is a movie which broke box office records in 1932 and remains unforgettable today.

"Red Dust" is a classic early 1930's drama filled with plenty of steamy sexual tension and barbed dialogue that would never have got by the censors later in that decade. The film at first glance really doesn't look like a typical MGM product what with its depiction of a seemy side of life not commonly associated with Metro products. Indeed it has an almost modern feel to some of the exchanges between the leading players and the situations it depicts...I strongly recommend "Red Dust" to you as a terrific tale of lust and passion,... pre code style. It is first and foremost an unforgettable Gable/Harlow teaming where you get to see the types of characters for which both are best known vividly acted out. Both made great films with other perfomers in the future but to see first hand what made the Gable/Harlow combination such magic on screen you need go no further than the classic "Red Dust".

As a diehard fan of Clark Gable I rented this movie for him and came out of it completely under the spell of Jean Harlow. Who cares what their personal lives were like, does it really matter? No, when they're on the screen together everything else just disappears. While some actresses seem to shrink in the presence of legends like Gable, Harlow actually steals scenes from him. Her tough talking Vantine is the one you're rooting for from the beginning. And when she's not on the screen the story gets a bit sappy and diluted. But as always she returns to save the day (and the picture) with her wise-cracking unapologetic manner. Hooray for Harlow and Gable! Whatever genius got them together on the screen did film fans everywhere a favor!

Thanks to the pure-gold performances of Jean Harlow and Clark Gable, RED DUST remains an enjoyable early example of the melodrama potboiler genre. The story is based on the play by Wilson Collison, and centers around hard-nosed rubber plantation owner Carson (played by Clark Gable). Jean Harlow plays Vantine, a good-time girl on the run from the Saigon police. The two strike up an unlikely relationship, which is disrupted when an engineer (Gene Raymond) and his beautiful wife Barbara (Mary Astor) arrive. Carson and Barbara become inseparable, leading to a violent confrontation when the situation becomes too much to bear...

Mary Astor and Jean Harlow offer excellent performances as the women vying for Carson's love. Harlow utters some of her trademark zinger-quips and the movie is enlivened immensely by her presence. Also featuring Donald Crisp.

Later re-made in 1953 as MOGAMBO, with Clark Gable reprising his role opposite two new leading ladies (Ava Gardner in the Harlow role; Grace Kelly in the Astor role). RED DUST is a real masterpiece of melodrama, romance and action.

The 1932 film "Red Dust," the first cinematic pairing of platinum blondeshell Jean Harlow and the virile Clark Gable, is obviously inspired by the success of Somerset Maugham's "Rain." Once again we have a fallen woman, Vantine Jefferson (Harlow), a Saigon prostitute, running from the police who hides out on an Indo-China rubber plantation run by an unshaven Dennis Carson (Gable). Harlow's character talks tough, but she is a sizzling sexpot (this is the film where she takes a bath in a rain barrel) who sasses him back every time he tries to give her the business. Soon he falls for all of her vamping and tries to get her to accept some meony so she can start her life anew some place else.

The next boat arrives at the plantation and delivers engineer Gary Willis (Gene Raymond) and his wife, Barbara (Mary Astor). Willis has been stricken with fever and while he recovers Carson forgets about Vantine and falls for Barbara. Then things start getting really complicated. But the main attraction here is these characters wallowing in sins of the flesh in a film made two years before the Code cleaned up Hollywood (and five years before Harlow's death at the age of 26). You will never think the same thoughts about your favorite cheese again after watching Harlow and Gable tackle the subject. Gable acts the part of a first-rate cad for most of the film while Harlow drips innuendo about her sleeping habits. Even Astor as the adulterous "Babs" has her moments, as when she and Gable share their first kiss after he rescues her from a monsoon that leaves her drenched.

"Red Dust" is one of those black & white pre-Code films that is steamier than the vast majority of contemporary films that try to deal with the idea of sex. The film was directed by Victor Fleming (uncredited) and is based on a play by Wilson Collison. This was the first of two films that Gable made with Fleming before the director was called in to save the actor from George Cukor on "Gone With the Wind." Harlow and Gable would be united again the following year in "Hold Your Man," in 1935 in "China Seas," 1936's "Wife Versus Secretary," and in her last film, 1937's "Saratoga."

Imagine the lush heat of the jungle and the brutish, sex-starved men that live there. All that heat is present in Red Dust, the story of the manager of a rubber plantation (Clark Gable) and his lust for a prostitute (Jean Harlow) and a society wife (Mary Astor). This is heady stuff for the early 30s, but thankfully plenty passed by the lax censorship of the pre-code era. We've got it all with adultery, a bathing scene, and gunfire.

Besides the racy story, Red Dust has the benefit of an excellent cast, all in top form here. Harlow is sexy and full of personality here as Vantine. She has plenty of great quips, and her comedic timing with Willie Fung is excellent. Gable is Gable, strong and masculine as ever and taking no prisoners. Despite his tough exterior and his unapologetic tendency to use and abuse women, it is hard not to find him attractive. Astor is vulnerable and suseptible to his advances, but convincingly toggles between her lust for him and her love for her husband (Gene Raymond).

Red Dust is light years ahead of the remake also starring Gable called Mogambo. You'll find yourself watching it and re-watching it and never getting tired of it.

"Red Dust" is a 1932 offering from MGM starring Clark Gable and Jean Harlow in their second film pairing together, and in my opinion, their best.
Gable is Dennis Carson, the owner of a rubber plantation in Indochina, who is a big, burly man's man. He becomes infatuated with Vantine Jefferson (Harlow), a Saigon prostitute making a stopover on the rubber plantation while hiding out from the Saigon authorities and who rather likes being the sole female on the plantation. While it's obvious that Vantine has feelings for Dennis, before they can fully be developed, new hire Gary Willis (Gene Raymond) and his wife, the composed and prissy Barbara (Mary Astor), show up (complete with tennis rackets!). Turns out that Gary has a nasty Asian flu that requires him to spend several weeks bedridden, leaving Barbara to her own devices, which Dennis soon realizes and steps in on. Before long, Dennis and Barbara and engaging in a passionate extramarital affair, while Gary recuperates and Vantine stews. Soon, however, Dennis realizes that the rubber plantation is no life for Barbara and although he is somewhat dull, Gary is a basically a decent guy who loves his wife and Dennis truly doesn't want to steal Barbara from him. A somewhat cold hearted dumping occurs, a shooting and in the end, Vantine ends up in Dennis' arms.
What makes this pre-Code film such a joy is Gable and Harlow. Gable is at his he-man best in this role and it shows. His presence every time he is on screen is so magnetic, it's almost animalistic. You simply cannot tear your eyes away from him. While he may not have been one of the better actors of his generation, he had that undeniable quality that made him a star.
His chemistry with Harlow is sheer magic. Although Harlow has all the best comedic lines, Gable's reaction to her is priceless.
While there is no nudity or graphic scenes, this movie is more passionate, more sexed up than some films being made today.
You just know that once the film fades out, life will never be the same on that rubber plantation!
For fans of Gable, Harlow and/or the Thirties era, highly recommended!

"Red Dust" proved such a success for Clark Gable that he starred in the remake "Mogambo" over twenty years later, in the very same role. That doesn't happen very often, you know! He's a man's man, all hard liquor and sweat, and he takes a liking, naturally enough, to the floozy who drifts onto his rubber plantation, Jean Harlow. Things are pretty cozy for them until the Upper Crust couple arrive, naive Gene Raymond and his prim and proper wife Mary Astor. Then Gable takes a liking to HER, and the fur flies with Harlow. "Red Dust" is a barrel of fun that ought to interest even the most casual of viewers==just check out that impassioned kissing of Mary Astor!

Red Dust was an absolute smash hit, and is as fun for today's audiences as it was years ago. Yet the powers that be continue to hold it back from DVD. Perhaps its lack of Oscar Nominations explains this ridiculous situation: Gable was nominated in his other big films, and everyone by now has seen him, and in several transfers, playing Rhett Butler, Fletcher Christain, or reporter Peter Warne in "It Happened One Night". But the Oscars skipped a year, this year, and doubled up back in the early thirties, and "Red Dust" seems to have been overlooked. Too, so vampy a lady as Harlow's Vantine was not at all the ideal in mind when they came up with Best Actress nominations!

The other review gives out a little too much of the plot for my taste. Also, I find Harlow far more fun to watch than Mary Astor. Harlow is a positive scream in every scene, from yakking away to distraction, to taking a bath in the wash tub, splashing around, teasingly imploring Gable to rub her back. Harlow's dunking at the hands of Gable while Astor watches the two at play is unforgettable. Today's audience would never know, as did contemporary movie-goers, that Harlow during filming was right in the middle of one of the biggest Hollywood scandals between the Fatty Arbuckle case and the Carole Landis suicide: the mystery surrounding the suicide/murder of Harlow's new husband, Paul Bern, who had only recently finished working on Grand Hotel. It's incredible to see the light-hearted, playful fun-loving harlot of the film as played by Jean and realize the press madness going on outside the Studio lot and the total nightmare mess - including a total financial disaster - she faced when she left work each night. Yet Harlow was back on the set after a little over a week.

By the way, the film's title, "Red Dust", may evoke for those who have lived in the Mediterranean the sandstorms blowing off Africa and across the Sicily and Italy and Greece and Turkey, but for the most part the movie is filled not with dust, but water imagery. Harlow's character drifts in on the river escaping from police troubles in Saigon - Gable's rubber plantation is in French Indo-China, today's Vietnam. Shot glasses of liguor are ubiquitous, clothes are drenched in sweat, moisture drips in the form of rubber sap. Gene Raymond comes down with malaria and is spends much of the breif film time - barely over an hour - soaking and sweating in delirium, and all the pent-up passion culminates in a massive jungle rain storm, with Mary Astor's loyal wife falling into the arms of manly Gable, followed by a series of melodramatic responses. Pure Hollywood! But wonderful Hollywood!

Gable and Harlow's next feature, China Seas, was cobbled together to take full advantage of their huge success as a couple in Red Dust. Since we now have that film available on DVD, perhaps "Red Dust" may soon finally appear! Let's hope so!

21 years before Mogambo there was Red Dust. An age appropriate Clark Gable, as Dennie, hooks up with a devastating Jean Harlow as Vantine. He's a rubber farmer somewhere in S.E. Asia. She's a lady of easy virtue hiding out from the law. To say she is merely beautiful is a disservice. She is sexy & has a mouth on her that will raise tumescence in any generation. She falls in love with Dennie & his BS. He likes her & the good times she provides. Enter Babara (Mary Astor). She beautiful, refined, British. She is everything Vantine is not including married to Gary who's a dolt. She & Dennie fall passionately in love. Their kiss is one of the best Hollywood has ever offered & as a result it would have been cut (or at least shortened, it was long). Also cut would have been some of Harlow's smart banter & state of undress. In one scene she is reclining alone & stretching, her high thigh dress going north. She then self consciously adjusts herself, but the scene stayed in. Such was family friendly MGM in 1932. In the end Gable becomes noble & does the right thing. See it. One the censors didn't get.