Nice Way To Start My Day......

What a lovely way to start my day. I got a message from Maggie at Silver Screen Dream saying that she had awarded me the "You're going places, Baby" blog award.

I will now pass this worthy honor on to five very worthy bloggers to whom I think are defintely going places, and they must choose and bestow this pleasant treat to those five they follow and enjoy! They also must link back to those who honored them with the award! Hey, that's me!

Here are my picks for the "You're going places, Baby" blog award:

Classicfilmboy at Classicfilmboy's Movie Paradise

R.D. Finch at The Movie Projector

Lolita at Lolita's Classics

Cliff at Warren-William.com

Tristan at Enchanted Revelry

These are creative and informative bloggers all! Congrats to me, Maggie and all who have been recognized today!

Dragonwyck (1946): Gothic Suspense, Fox Style

According to actress Gene Tierney, in her autobiography, Self Portrait, the thing most remembered by her during the filming of Dragonwyck, was her initial meeting of young John F. Kennedy, just home from his service in the South Pacific. “I turned and found myself staring into what I thought were the most perfect blue eyes I had ever seen on a man. He was standing near the camera, wearing a navy lieutenant’s uniform. He smiled at me.” It was the beginning of what would become a heartbreaking romance for the star. But there was certainly much more to remember about the actual film than the off-screen pairing of two very attractive young celebrities. Dragonwyck is a wonderful example of the Gothic suspense genre of films, written and produced in the tradition of Rebecca and Jane Eyre.

Based on Anya Seton’s 1944 novel, Dragonwyck is the name of an enormous estate in the Hudson Valley of New York state in the mid-nineteenth century, owned by patroon Nicholas Van Ryn (Vincent Price). Under the Dutch patroon system, a landholder held rights to large tracts of land in the seventeenth century colony of New Netherland (later New York), which were worked by small farmers for a portion of what they produced (think early sharecropping). Van Ryn invites his “cousin” Miranda Wells, a young country lass from Connecticut, to be governess to his young daughter. When she arrives at Dragonwyck, she senses strange goings on and when Van Ryn’s wife mysteriously dies, he asks Miranda to marry him. All is fine until their firstborn, a male child so desperately wanted by its father, dies shortly after his birth.



Tierney is breathtaking as always. One of the biggest non musical stars at 20th Century-Fox during the mid 40’s, her cool glamour is apparent as it is in so many roles she played during the period. She had just reached a career high the previous year with her Oscar nomination for her starring role in Leave Her to Heaven, and the plum dramatic roles on the Fox lot were being offered to her. Co-star Vincent Price, though not billed above the title, garnered one of his rare starring parts during his tenure at Fox, though the role of Nicholas Van Ryn was first slated for newcomer Gregory Peck, but Peck bowed out and eventually, Price was cast. His creepy, eerily manipulative Van Ryn is a foreshadowing of the definitive characters for which he would become famous in later life.

One important note about the movie is that it marks the directorial debut of intelligent screenwriter Joseph L. Mankiewicz, who would go on to win Oscars for A Letter to Three Wives and All About Eve , both also at 20th Century-Fox. Already writing the script for Dragonwyck, he was called on to direct when scheduled director Ernst Lubitsch became ill. Atmospheric and rich in historic texture, it is a respectable first effort and a memorable film. Excellent support comes in the form of Glenn Langan, as a handsome doctor who falls in love with Gene, Walter Huston and Anne Revere as Tierney’s God-fearing parents, Spring Byington as the wise but giddy housekeeper of Dragonwyck and in a small and early role, Jessica Tandy as an Irish maid.

Cheers! Happy Anniversary, Classic Movies Digest!

On March 25, 2009, cyberspace and the blogosphere were hit with yet another tiny speck of writing by yet another excited wordsmith. That speck was Classic Movies Digest and that excited wordsmith was me. It seems like it was only a couple of months ago but indeed, the calender has come full circle. And speaking of coming full circle, the very first post on CMD was a discussion of The Devil and Daniel Webster, based on the literary classic by Stephen Vincent Benet, while the most recent, released last week, was a discussion of the 1933 version of Alice in Wonderland, based on the literary classic by Lewis Carroll. However, in the annum between the two posts, all kinds of genres have been touched on, from melodrama to westerns. I hope readers of Classic Movies Digest have enjoyed and interacted in the discussion, and will continue to do so in the years to come.

Alice in Wonderland (1933): Box Office Down the Rabbit Hole

Curiouser and curiouser! ~ Alice
Long before Tim Burton and Johnny Depp filmed Alice in Wonderland in 2010, a big budget, all star version of the children's classic was produced at Paramount Studios in 1933. Based on both the Lewis Carroll tales Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (written in 1865) and Through the Looking Glass (in 1870), the 1933 version of Alice, unlike it's modern counterpart (or the 1951 animated version by Walt Disney), made this trip through the looking glass a major flop. I must agree with moviegoers from the Depression era. With all the money and big name draw that went into the film, it indeed was a big fizzle.

But it had potential. Half of the Paramount lot was cast in the film in all the supporting roles. The big problem was that they were either barely recognizable or not at all in extremely heavy make-up or costumes that completely covered both their face and body. The tedious garb was based on John Tenniel's famed illustrations for the original book, and painstaking detail was taken to create the right look for each character, but they look wooden, unnatural and toyish. Cary Grant (pictured below with his overwhelming costume), not yet the superstar he would become, played the Mock Turtle and was even required to sing! Another Paramount star, whom one would never recognize if not for his name on the credits, is Gary Cooper. As the White Knight, constantly falling off his horse, Cooper is disguised as an old man, and there is none of the virility and dash of early Cooper to be found here, which is fine, just another example of bad casting to fill the marquee with big names. Some notable performances, and ones which were examples of good casting were W.C. Fields as Humpty Dumpty, Edna May Oliver as the Red Queen and Edward Everett Horton as the Mad Hatter. Horton's version of the Hatter is particularly suited to his fussy, madcap humor and the actor actually favors his character.



Many reviews of the film call it a faithful adaption of Carroll's classic, but this blogger begs to differ. First of all, it combines elements and characters of both Wonderland and Looking Glass to form one story, sort of Alice's Odyssey to Crazy Land. Secondly, from the very beginning, the film is nothing like the story. Unlike Carroll's tale, where Alice is outside in the country with her sister, the film begins with the little girl holed up in her home on a snowy day with what appears to be her governess. She then goes "through the looking glass" BEFORE she gets to the rabbit hole, which is in a completely different story.

Then we come to Alice herself. Paramount was said to have brought Ida Lupino, then only 18 years old and a complete novice to the screen, from England to play the part, but instead, cast Charlotte Henry, an 18 year old American with only a couple of years on-screen experience, though physically, she fit the role nicely. Lupino stayed on with Paramount and became a star in the next decade with Warner Brothers. The film had been considered a vehicle for silent star Mary Pickford, and would pair her with the animation of the Walt Disney studios, but the idea didn't gel before Paramount retained the rights.



Although not a barnburner at the box office nor with critics, this version of Alice in Wonderland in still an interesting novelty, if only to see early Grant and Cooper in bizarre getups. It's also fun for Fields fans and though the backdrops are quite amateurish, there is still some inventive use of special effects for some of the fantasy scenes. Worth a look just to say you did.

Note: After nearly seventy years this version of the Wonderland tale was released on DVD in early March 2010 to coincide with the theatrical release of the new Burton/Depp film.

Suspicion (1941): Cary Grant a Killer?

Although not usually one for spoilers when discussing classic films, the topic of this post has many of the films final elements revealed as they are key to the information examined here. Be warned.

There was so much going on behind the scenes of Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 suspenser, Suspicion, it's a wonder it ever got produced. Actually, it had been floating around for years before Hitchcock finally made it at RKO studios. Based on a novel by Francis Iles called "Before the Fact", the film version starred Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine, and would be one of the first American made Hitchcock films that focused on the psychological aspects of its characters, much more so than his previous year's blockbuster, Rebecca.



At the time Suspicion was made, Alfred Hitchcock was under exclusive contract to producer David O. Selznick, the mastermind behind Gone with the Wind (1939). Together, they formed an unholy union that created Rebecca, Hitchcock's first American film, but Selznick was so unyielding to the British director on creative issues, Hitchcock was more than grateful to be loaned out to make Suspicion (Selznick was notorious for loaning out his talented contractees, making enormous profits off their services, instead of using them for his own films, except on occasion). Another of the Selznick group loaned to make Suspicion was the film's female lead, Joan Fontaine. She too, had been part of the success of Rebecca, being nominated for an Academy Award as the meek second Mrs. deWinter. Hitchcock had been keen on casting her in that role, even though publicity mad Selznick had hoped to recreate the hub bub he had enjoyed with his search for Scarlett while casting Gone with the Wind. The producer cast a wide net to entice established actresses to test for the part. In the end, Fontaine got the role and when it came time to shoot Suspicion, the shy, awkwardness she displayed in Rebecca held her in good enough stead with Hitchcock that he cast her again.

Fontaine plays Lina McLaidlaw, a reserved young Englishwoman, who comes from a well-to-do country family but is well on her way to spinsterhood, a fact brought to the forefront by none other than her parents. Also a fact noted and filed away by handsome and roguish playboy Johnny Aysgarth (Cary Grant). Johnnie knows a good thing when he sees it (a skill that doesn't always shine through with his regular trips to the racetrack). The good looking ne'er do well woos and eventually charms the awkward lass into marriage, assuming the would be heiress will eventually net a fortune. As the weeks go by, Lina begins to see Johnnie for the scheming, charmingly manipulative man he is, yet still loves him. When his old friend , the lovable but slow witted Beaky (terrifically played by Nigil Bruce) arrives, Lina's suspicions grow even stronger. Johnnie persuades the trusting Beaky to go into a real estate venture with him only to see the friendly fellow die a questionable death shortly afterward. Finally, the shrinking wife, realizes her affable husband has inquired into her life insurance policy and sees his actions from that point in a sinister light.



Studio brass at RKO, didn't think the public would accept Grant as a cold blooded killer and wanted the film's ending to reflect that assumption. According to Alfred Hitchcock, in his famous interview with Francois Truffaut, he wanted the film to end with Fontaine's character realizing that her husband was a murderer, but so in love with him that she couldn't leave him. Instead, she writes a letter to her mother exposing her husband and proclaiming her wish to die. When Grant's Johnnie brings her the "poisonous" milk, she asks him to mail the letter, drinks the milk and drifts off. The final fade out, according to the director, would show Cary, whistling a chipper tune as he slips the letter into the mailbox. The weaker conciliatory ending didn't curtail box office returns and Suspicion was a bonafide hit over the 1941 holidays.

Hitchcock's signature use of creative lighting and camera angles, along with with an atmospheric score by famed composer Franz Waxman, garnered the film a nomination at the next years Oscars. (As to the directors creative genius, he also confessed to Truffaut that a small light was actually placed in the glass of milk carried by Grant up the dark stairwell to make it luminous. He wanted it to be the complete focus of the scene). The big winner at Oscar time was actually Joan Fontaine. The young actress, unhappily married at the time to actor Brian Aherne, felt she wasn't getting the guidance she needed from the formidable director and her sense of loss both on the set and off, brought to her performance the sense of fragility and paranoia, needed to convey Lina's neurosis. It won her the Best Actress Oscar, beating out her sister Olivia DeHavilland and fueling an infamous rivalry between the siblings which was never resolved. Many thought the win was a consolation prize for not winning with her Rebecca role, but as it turned out it was the only Hitchcock directed role to ever win an Academy Award.

The Most Dangerous Game (1932): Second Cousin to King Kong...Once Removed

When I was in the 8th grade, our class read the short story The Most Dangerous Game (also known as The Hounds of Zaroff) by Richard Connell, and I thought it a thrilling read, as stories read in school were not always that glamorous at that age. I discovered years later that several film versions had been made of the classic 1924 story and was particularly interested in the first and most famous one made in 1932. It wasn't until recently that I had the opportunity to finally see this oft filmed tale in its original screen incarnation and found it was worth the wait.

Although the RKO golden boy of the early 1930's, Joel McCrea, was top billed, the films villain, British stage actor, Leslie Banks, was the true shining force. As the sinister Zaroff, Banks is in melodramatic overdrive, overplaying his role like so many bad guys in the early sound era did. But this zeal only added to the eerie atmosphere of an eerily atmospheric picture.

McCrea plays big game hunter Bob Rainsford, who, as the lone survivor of a shipwreck, swims to the safely of a nearby island. On the island he finds the creepy mansion of creepy Count Zaroff (Banks), complete with creepy servants. Amongst all this creepiness, he finds the lovely Eve Trowbridge (Fay Wray) and her drunken brother Martin (Robert Armstrong), also guests in the Zaroff household due to a shipwreck near the island. It doesn't take long before our hero finds out that Zaroff, a self proclaimed fellow hunter, is a madman, who, bored with hunting mere animals, steers ships toward the rocky cove near his island in order to find a new and more dangerous prey...humans.

The Most Dangerous Game packs a wallop in its 63 minute time frame. Made for approximately $200,000, it was a success at the box office. If it looks and feels familiar, that may be because it gives the distinct impression of being King Kong~esque. That, in fact, is not by happenstance, as the two were being made simultaneously at RKO studio, by the same filmmaking team of Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack. Kong stars Fay Wray and Robert Armstrong even gave a two for one by playing in both. 26 year-old McCrea gives a performance of smooth self assurance in this, one of his early beefcake roles. Master musician Max Steiner adds the perfect musical complement to all the mayhem. But Leslie Banks steals each scene in which he appears. Stroking the scar on his head, and staring off in the distance, one can only imagine the twisted atrocities running through his deranged mind as Zaroff. And what does the striking Miss Wray do? Why, cast look after look of sheer terror and scream, of course.

The Most Dangerous Game is part adventure film, part horror (Portions of the "trophy room" scene were cut when preview audiences started leaving the theater in horror/disgust). The principles make an engaging group, and the overall flick is like And Then There Were None without the mystery. If King Kong is the more ambitious and better known of these pieces of Siamese celluloid, Dangerous Game at least needs to be acknowledged in its own right as a classic example of early adventure, Hollywood style.

Want to know more?Here are some recommendations regarding the article above:

The Most Dangerous Game(1932) DVD

The RKO Features: A Complete Filmography of the Feature Films Released or Produced by RKO Radio by James L. Neibaur

If you are interested in these or any other merchandise, please help support this blog by purchasing them through the Amazon portal at the top of this page. By accessing Amazon through this site, you help me maintain resource material and continue to share my love of classic film. Thank you very much.

Can You Guess Who This Is?

Can you guess who am I? Surely you know me. No hints, just check out the gleam in my eye.

The Whisperers (1967): Are You There?

Few, if any, films present the loneliness of old age as starkly as Bryan Forbes' The Whisperers (1967), and few actresses have shown the depth of character for such a topic as Dame Edith Evans does in this film. The Whisperers is Evans' tour de force. Nominated for an American Academy Award, she lost out to Katherine Hepburn (as so many before and after her), but her performance in the film was so effective and absorbing that she was not only nominated but won the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the National Board of Review Award, the Golden Globe and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts Award (BAFTA), all as Best Actress.

Evans' is best known as a haughty, aristocrat in films like The Importance of Being Earnest (1952), Tom Jones (1963) and The Chalk Garden (1964), even displaying a lofty indifference as the Ghost of Christmas Past in 1970's Scrooge. But her character in The Whisperers is the exact opposite. Mrs. Margaret Ross is an elderly, mentally fragile, poverty stricken woman, living on the dole in a dingy flat in Manchester, England. Friendless and with no family of any help to her, she finds a lone friend in a compassionate social worker (Gerald Sim). Her onset of senility has her imagining voices coming from her ancient radio or the pipes of her decrepit plumbing. Her daily routine consists of singing hymns with a host of fellow unfortunates at a local soup kitchen and trying to warm her feet on a heating duct at the free library. Her quiet, lonely existence is sent into upheaval when her worthless son shows up ~ possibly the first time in years ~ with a parcel, which unbeknownst to Mrs. Ross, contains stolen loot, which he hopes to hide in her shabby hovel. When she discovers the ill-gotten gains, her feeble mind believes it is the inheritance she has long waited for. Her troubles only truly begin when she meets a shady lady out to steal the money, lands in hospital with pneumonia and has her long lost, no good husband cast upon her as caregiver.

If indeed Dame Edith is the whole show ~ and she is ~ the support offered her by a plethora of wonderful British actors is just as substantial. As her deadbeat husband, Archie Ross, veteran actor Eric Portman gives one of his final performances. His Archie is a vagabond mooch, who is coerced by the authorities to see to his deserted wife after her bout with pneumonia. Another winning performance is by Gerald Sim. As Mr. Conrad, the social worker who takes a personal interest in the desolate and destitute Mrs. Ross, Sim offers a sympathetic portrayal of what could have been another standard part swept under the cinematic rug. Ronald Frasier and Avis Bunnage also do a fine job as Ross' worthless son and a degenerate con woman respectively. The only complaint is for Nanette Newman. As the director's wife, Ms. Newman received third billing for less than half dozen or so lines in a part that could have easily been edited. Although very attractive, Ms. Newman, aka Mrs. Forbes, appeared in the film in a beefed up part, apparently the recipient of good nepotism.

The moody and very atmospheric score is by multi award winning composer John Barry and the low-key cinematography by Gerry Turpin, both turning in winning elements to the emotionally draining story. Not for the faint of heart, The Whisperers has very mature and thought provoking themes. It even touches on the subjects of elderly sexual relations, interracial cohabitation, and even the briefest hint of incest (when Evans' would be assailant, father and daughter, give one another knowing smirks). But the overwhelming commentary is on aging and poverty, and that commentary is brought to the screen both thoughtfully and sensitively. It's message is one that is as important and prevalent today in the United States as it was in Great Britain, circa 1967.

100 Blog Posts: How About 101?

When I started writing Classic Movies Digest last spring, I had no idea I would eventually write 100 posts. I had no idea how many posts I would write, I just wanted to share my love of classic movies with anyone who wanted to read what I had to say and share that love with me. Well, I am happy to say the response has been tremendous and I have enjoyed meeting a wide variety of fellow classic movie enthusiasts. To celebrate the milestone, I requested your input, what readers wanted to see for the 100th article, and based on comments, e-mails and various messages and requests, the following is the response of the masses. Thanks to everyone who participated and to all readers of CMD.

Silent Transition: Can You Hear Me Now?

"Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!" Those were the first words spoken in The Jazz Singer (1927), the first "talkie" movie, partially anyway. It was the first feature film that bridged the gap from silents, the only films the world had known, to the sound era of filmmaking. Released by Warner Brothers in fall of 1927, the studio would release Lights of New York, the first all-talking feature film, the following year and with that, there was no turning back. Audiences flocked to the new kind of movie and box office takes were too profitable to ignore, even by those who at first called the concept a "fad". It was a transition famously ~ and creatively ~ lampooned in the classic musical Singin' in the Rain (1952), but the conversion to sound didn't come without its casualties. Talent went to the wayside in droves, some, superstars of their time.

Many of the most celebrated stars of the silent era were of foreign birth and thick accents were given as the major reason for their fall from box office grace. Pola Negri, notable paramour of Chaplin and Valentino, was one such case. Her Polish accent apparently so thick it was deemed practically inaudible. Poor sound technology didn't help these situations surely, nonetheless, Paramount declined to renew her contract. Swedish icon Greta Garbo, on the other hand, not only made the transition successfully but thrived in sound films. Her Anna Christie (1930) actually heralded her sound debut with banner headers screaming "GARBO TALKS!" to movie-goers. Her reign at MGM was only strengthened, and her famed low profile only caused audiences and fans to want to hear her talk all the more.


As for paramours, Garbo's lover and would be husband, John Gilbert, was one of the sound era's most beleaguered victims. Once rivaled only by Rudolph Valentino as the ultimate male sex symbol of the silent period, the problems with his post silent career went far further than mere sound mechanics. As the story goes, his predicament began with his proposed marriage to the elusive Miss Garbo. In 1926, he and Greta were to take part in a double wedding ceremony with director King Vidor and actress Eleanor Boardman. Garbo was a no show. MGM head honcho and Gilbert and Garbo's boss, Louis B. Mayer, attending the nuptials, made a nasty crack about John's bride-to-be and Gilbert socked him. According to Miss Boardman, Mayer swore to wreck the actor's career. There was no love lost between these two men even before the incident, so the skirmish only brought to a head the tension between them. When Gilbert made his talking debut in This Glorious Night (1929), his voice came across as too high pitched to make him a viable screen lover. Also, his constant use of the phrase "I love you" was sniggered at by audiences and parodied in the afore mentioned Singin' in the Rain. Legend is that Mayer had the sound manipulated in the film to make Gilbert's voice less than suitable. Lack of support from his studio, heartbreak over his failed romance and alcohol all played a part in his demise.

Others who didn't withstand the test of time were superstar Clara Bow (above). The "It" Girl had a Brooklyn accent which supposedly the public didn't readily identify with their beloved sex goddess. Bow's voice actually wasn't much different from any of her contemporaries who also came from the New York borough, Barbara Stanwyck for instance, and time has shown that her career problems stemmed more from her personal demons than public acceptance. Some, like Bow, crossed over but didn't sustain their stardom. Ramon Navarro, Mary Pickford and Gloria Swanson to name a few (Swanson would gloriously mock her own decline in her classic "comeback", Sunset Boulevard (1950) ). Chaplin didn't even bother until 1940.

Then there were those who, like Garbo, crossed over and blossomed in the age of talkies. Joan Crawford (left), everybody's favorite flapper, not only made the successful transition but reinvented herself numerous times to sustain her career for decades to come. She went from 20's flapper, to 30's working girl, to 40's noir dame to 50's hardcore queen bee to 60's campy horror icon. Norma Shearer, Ronald Colman and Janet Gaynor are great examples of those who excelled on both sides of the celluloid fence. But with the onset of sound, the time was right for change regardless. Stage actors came on the scene, those who had both faces and voices that they knew how to use. Of this crop, those who moved in to stay included Bette Davis, Katherine Hepburn, Humphrey Bogart, James Cagney and a slew of others. The chase was on and the newbies were ahead of the game.

Whether he knew he was being prophetic or not in The Jazz Singer, Al Jolson was right, we hadn't heard nothin' yet. Paging Lina Lamont.

Red Dust (1932): Sex in the Tropics

Sex. It permeates almost every frame of the pre-Code classic Red Dust (1932), and why shouldn't it? It starred Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, both at their physical peak and professionally, well, this film shot them to superstardom. It was raw, it was wanton and, if audience attendance was any indicator, it was extremely entertaining. In the world of pre-Code Hollywood (the time before the Hollywood censors would banish any naughty behaviour onscreen), Red Dust fairly reeks of sex with nary a nude scene or onscreen intercourse. Who needed these things with Gable's virile masculinity and Harlow's open sensuality coming together with a charged electricity that crackles in front of the camera (and if rumour is correct, behind it as well).

Set on a rubber plantation in Indochina, Red Dust smells of rugged machismo, Gable and his cronies out in the middle of nowhere, cultivating raw rubber "so some old lady somewhere can take a hot water bottle to bed with her". Enter stage left, Harlow as Vantine, a fun loving harlot on the run from officials in Saigon, who shows plenty of leg, along with everything else. Just as she and Denny (Gable) are getting cosy, enter stage right, Gene Raymond (usually the partner to Ann Sothern in a series of lighthearted romps) and Mary Astor as Gary and Barbara "Babs" Willis, the plantation's new surveyor and his prim, proper and quite pulsating new wife. Gary is immediately stricken with malaria, giving Denny and Babs a chance to ignite a few sparks of their own. Vantine, not the kind of gal who takes a back seat quietly (not alone anyway), lashes out with wisecracks aplenty, making some of the snappiest dialogue this side of the Hays office.

Dialogue was one of the best ~and most brazen~ assets the film had going for it, second to its zesty stars. When Harlow's Vantine first encounters Gable's Denny and his male assistant, she playfully asks them, "What else do you do besides work? Do you play any games?". As her constant chatter irritates a grumpy Denny, he finally shouts, "Do you want me to slap you out of this room?", to which she retorts, "You and what man's army?", and of course this verbal sparring leads to eventual laughter and a seductive fade out. Harlow is ready for Gable. He manhandles her just the way she likes to be manhandled.

The film is not the typical fare produced by MGM at the time. The mega studio had no glamorous backdrop to present its stars and yet, it was immensely popular with the public. The film's director, Victor Fleming, was a "man's man" and a close friend to the macho Gable. Red Dust was the kind of film Fleming thrived on (he also directed Gable in 1939's Gone with the Wind). Gable's role as Denny was originally thought to be filled by silent film star John Gilbert, but studio politics and boss Louis B. Mayer nixed the idea and Gable came away famous.

The movie's tropical setting only adds to the heat already generated by its cast. As Barbara, Mary Astor is even more unwillingly libertine in her adulterous lust for Gable's Denny when one knows the background of the actress' torrid and infamous real life amours. The fireworks are in their scenes together as well. Early on when Astor slaps Gable hard for a verbal offense, he enjoys it, grinning that Gable grin from ear to ear. Then she can barely conceal her growing desire for him as she watches the strong, dark and commanding Denny hold her fair and weak husband, nursing him back to health from the fever. The comparison of the two is indeed notable to the tingly Astor. Then in the scene immediately following, Vantine happily and boldly watches Denny undress for bed, only to be told to go to her own, which she does in disappointment. These two ladies have it bad. The wise-cracking, off color dialogue continues when a disgruntled Harlow proclaims to the parrot, whose cage she is cleaning: "What you been eatin', cement?" The steamy shenanigans culminate in a carnal wrestling match between Denny and Vantine, which ends with our anti-hero being shot in the torso by a jealous Babs.

Jean Harlow was only 21 when Red Dust was released but her erotic, world wise persona is decades older. MGM slated their new cash cow couple into several popular money makers over the next five years. Harlow's last film before her untimely death in 1937 was Saratoga, again with Gable.