1932 Directed by Victor Fleming
Dennis, owner of a rubber plantation in Cochinchina, is involved with Vantine, who left Saigon to evade the police. When his new surveyor arrives along with his refined wife Dennis is quickly infatuated by her.
Dschungel im Sturm, Tierra de pasión, Terra de paixão, Glød, La belle de Saïgon, Lo schiaffo, Terra abrasadora, Taifun, La jungla in rivolta, Красная пыль, Червен прах, Frumoasa din Saigon, La Belle de Saïgon, Terra de Paixão, 红尘
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Harlow and Gable seducing each other by talking about Roquefort and Gorgonzola cheese, with a parrot in the background who enviously says: "I'm lonely, I'm lonely".
It's rainy season in a jungle in Indochina as rubber guy Clark Gable mistreats his 'coolies', his white employees, the spunky prostitute who washes ashore and the poor idolizing sap who comes to work for him and makes the dumb mistake of bringing his wife.
There's a lot of overlooking of racist situations to be done before you can enjoy this, but if you do, you get some classic Harlow, who is the smartest person in the room, has all the best lines (expertly delivered) and basically sets the standard for the saintly whore, soon to be a stalwart Hollywood cliché.
Next to her Gable and Mary Astor do a lot of looking great, especially when soaking wet (Mel Gibson/Sigourney…
This movie exists as a charm-off between it's 3 leads and not much more. Gable, Harlow, and Astor all give spectacular performances and show why they were the top of their game at the time. I was particularly impressed by Harlow, navigating her bad-girl persona while still being down to earth and funny. Gable similarly is irresistibly charming. The plot is nothing to write home about, though the setting allowed for an isolated character study, and the pre-code nature allowed them to explore more immoral themes and outcomes.
Solid, but probably won't be watching again.
“Say, a chipmunk and a rabbit. I wonder how this turns out.”
Jeepers, what’s a fella to do when he’s stuck in the middle of nowhere with two sexy broads with hormones on the rampage? What’s that? One of them’s married and her hubby, a swell guy, is present? When has that ever stopped a real man, especially when hormones are on the rampage?
Red Dust has a lot going for it: Gable at his most manly, Harlow taking a bath, Donald Crisp, usually a saint, playing a creep, Harlow taking a bath, the direction of Vic Fleming, who knows a thing or three about hot-blooded romantic dramas, Harlow taking a bath, the gorgeous b&w cinematography of Harold Rosson, who…
“Well, for the love of mud.”
Gable and Harlow play-fighting on the kitchen table, hotter than anything you’ve seen in the last two decades. There’s a whole subgenre of these rubber plantation melodramas, and this one is maybe the most “realistic,” at least in regards to the tree tapping business (I had no idea the extracted latex was drinkable). That realism surfaces in the badmouthing of the “lazy coolies” breaking their backs on the plantation to make pencil erasers for white schoolchildren. Par for the 30s course.
This is my favorite type of Gable role: stubbled, sweaty, shot-taking and exasperated; a horny voyeur; getting negged by Jean “your hair always been that color?” Harlow. Gable is such a great heel…
The racism that’s casually at the center of this movie is really, really hard to stomach, but man alive is Jean Harlow a wonder. She’s so comfortable and natural as Vantine that it does everyone else a disservice, as the view cannot understand how douchebag Dennis (Clark Gable) could ever choose anyone over her (particularly someone as bland as Barbara). In the hands of another actor, Vantine’s jibes and instinctive performances could have been very mannered, but for Harlow they’re as natural as breathing, serving to bring us closer to Vantine rather than push us away. She’s just incredible. Gable, meanwhile, is immensely appealing in the little moments when we’re not supposed to be looking at him — when he watches…
In this humid, pre-Code jungle cuckolding, Clark Gable previews his Rhett Butler swagger, Jean Harlow is the first bombshell to land on Vietnam, and no actress has ever looked better soaking wet than Mary Astor.
Jean Harlow is the brightest of the three stars, not just because she was a blinding supernova, but because she confidently knows who she is. Mary Astor is shocked to discover she’s a big a sinner as this magdalene, and Gable’s a total dick until he gets stuck out in the monsoon and catches a bad case of nobility.
John Ford would replace the dark claustrophobia of Indochina rubber plantation for the Technicolor wonders of the African savannah in his more nuanced, less racy remake, Mogambo 1953.
Suggested double feature pairing: The Letter 1940
Red Dust, set on a rubber plantation in the steamy, rain soaked jungle of what is present day Vietnam, features some prime Clark Gable (sans moustache) irascibility (the way I prefer Gable!).
Dennis Carson (Gable) is a selfish man, bored by the isolation and difficulties of life in the jungle. Between the weather and the prowling tigers, it's clear that just making it through the days and nights is a real challenge. Carson drinks an impressive amount (seriously I think he sits down and drinks more than half a bottle in minutes more than once) and turns his attention to women where he can for escapism. Which is how he strikes up a sexual liaison with sex worker Vantine (Jean…
Jean Harlow was so lovely in this. I just loved her sassiness! She and Clark Gable had such good chemistry.
A rubber plantation in French Indochina acts as the backdrop to a love triangle between Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, and Mary Astor. In her breakout role, Jean Harlow is a prostitute that Gable does business with before he sends her packing. Mary Astor is the newly arriving uptight/proper wife of an engineer, that Gable immediately gets designs for. Clark Gable is the womanizing cad foreman who sets out to have an affair, only to develop feelings for Astor. When Harlow becomes stranded on the remote plantation, it doesn't so much complicate Gable's courting, as give him another person to treat like crap.
An MGM production of Hunt Stromberg & Irving Thailberg, with Victor Fleming in the director's chair, and numerous Wizard…
