"Red Dust" (1932.)

In the previous essay on a film "Dodsworth" I really liked the actress Mary Astor - both her character and acting were complete antithesis of "Mrs.Dodsworth" (curiously enough,these two actresses were actually very good friends in real life). So I did a little research and found out I actually have her in my movie collection, appearing in a movie filmed before notorious 1934. moral code that strictly forbade basically everything and wanted the cinema industry to became wholesome, clean, family entertainment. In one sweep of legal registration, so called "Hayes code" formally blocked anything that was exciting (sex,crime,horror, murders, gangsters) and proclaimed that from now on, movie characters have to behave morally acceptive - out went Mae West with her dirty jokes,in came Shirley Temple. Luckily for us, pre-code movies are well preserved and some of them (like this next one) actually today celebrated as historically important national treasures.

"Red dust" (1932.) is a typical,delightful pre-code Hollywood movie where good guys are boring and bad guys are the one we love. Sweating on his rubber plantation, young Clark Gable is surrounded with men who are cursing, drinking and beating native workers (yes,its offensive for today's standards but obviously it was different time) when out of the blue sky sexy bombshell Jean Harlow falls in this "menagerie" clothed in silky frou-frou's that are constantly falling of her shoulders. Both Gable and Harlow are perfect for each other - he drinks and curses, she is obviously a prostitute who is hiding from some trouble and knows how to handle men like him. As a complete opposite we have young,married couple who arrive on plantation - engineer who is so well behaved that Gable can eat him for breakfast and his elegant, classy wife (Mary Astor) who is everything Harlow is not.

The rascal he is, Gable sends engineer for a week somewhere to work in a jungle and uses time to seduce his wife who is so well behaved that this new found passion completely shakes her from her usual stylishness and now she can't see anything but Gable's rough manliness. (To be fair,he washes and shaves for her.) A strange complicated story than follows, with four characters tormented not only with passions and lust,but also with a rain, wind and red dust that blows everywhere. The tiger roars outside, tropical nights are hot, what else to do but to seduce each other,I guess. The movie is full of fast dialogues that main characters spit out so easily that one can't help but to giggle, I must admit that these old pre-code movies had some fun scripts - I mean, there's nothing truly spectacular happening and still we can't help but watch like hypnotized.

Acting is surprisingly modern - Gable and Harlow look and behave like any today's superstar team would do (with noticeable chemistry between them) completely overshadowing "good" couple who are unfortunately so nice that we want them out of the picture. The engineer (Gene Raymond) is just obstacle and his wife (Mary Astor) is clearly out of place in a jungle - she is a sophisticated lady who can't imagine even washing in a barrel, while Harlow happily jumps in the same barrel naked and teases Gable. Lots of people today find faults with many details shown here - treatment of native workers and wild animals, not to mention stereotype of house servant (chinese actor Willie Fung) who basically just clowns around, makes grimaces and appears simple-minded. If you think this is demeaning, think again - recently I worked with somebody just like this for six months and the guy was spitting image of "Hoy" so people like him DO exist even today.