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Red Dust Movie Review

Red Dust is a 1932 Pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and Mary Astor. It is a solid flick, but it’s inferior to the remake.

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“Don’t mind me boys, I’m just restless“

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Carson abandons an informal relationship with Vantine, a prostitute, to pursue Barbara, wife of one of his employees, but has a change of heart. This movie was released during the heyday of both Harlow and Gable’s careers. And they both excelled playing these roles that were a perfect fit for them.

Gable was very suave here and highly amusing in his witty lines of dialogue. He was a towering presence in these romance films and this is one of those examples. But Harlow steals the show even from him. Yes, this was one of her career’s biggest pictures and the one role that embodied all of her best qualities – sexiness and what they considered “trashiness” for this time, but also clever wit and huge charisma.

By far the best moment came at the end when the two were having that very enjoyable conversation. It was both immensely romantic and highly provocative and sensual, pinpointing the Pre-Code elements present in this project. This was the height of Pre-Code movies and this interaction is a shining example of how intriguing these movies could be.

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So, the romance works. There is no question about it. And the movie is a romance, so it should be considered great in that regard? Well, not exactly. This may not be fair from me, but I did watch ‘Mogambo’ before this film and simply comparing the two ends with Red Dust coming at the bottom end. It may sound unfair, but it’s only natural to compare movies to one another, especially if they are the same story and to me this was a rare instance of a remake trumping the original in almost every regard.

The only thing that this one did best was the provocative and sensual element, but the overall characterization was much better in the remake and that movie was shot in Africa and it had great use of both native people and animals. This one not only fails to make use of its French Indochina setting, but it also painted the natives in such a horrendous light by making them both dumb and over-the-top. These sequences are simply cringey to watch in today’s climate and they really negatively affected the overall story.

As for those boring parts, they are dull once again. Mary Astor was saddled with this rather tedious female character and her husband is also a non-entity. Whenever the two were on screen, the movie did grind to a halt. The main two people were infinitely more interesting and fun.

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Red Dust is technically only okay. Again, there is no proper utilization of its Vietnamese setting and the movie, though well shot, wasn’t elevated by particularly strong technical aspects, including the score that was forgettable and the directing from Victor Fleming that was surprisingly pedestrian given his immense talents. It’s a very short movie clocking in at less than one and a half hours, so it’s an easy and breezy watch, but it fails to remain in your memory for much longer after seeing it.

Red Dust is a Pre-Code romance that was at its best when focusing on the relationship between Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, both perfectly cast and both excelling in their excellent roles. Their chemistry and dynamic were infectious. With that being said, all the other characters are forgettable, the natives represent horrible racist caricatures and the movie simply lacked the adventure, charm and grandiosity of its remake, Mogambo.

My Rating – 3.5

This is the third film in my 2wo series where I will cover one film per decade that is having an anniversary this year, from 1912 to 2012. Next up is the year 1942 where I chose I Married a Witch. Keep an eye on that one as well.