RED DUST (1932) B/W 83m dir: Victor Fleming

w/Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Mary Astor, Gene Raymond, Donald Crisp, Tully Marshall

From Variety's contemporary review of the film: "Familiar plot stuff, but done so expertly it almost overcomes the basic script shortcomings and the familiar hot-love-in-the-tropics theme [screenplay by John Lee Mahin, from the play by Wilson Collison].

"This time it's a rubber plantation in Indo-China, bossed by Clark Gable. Jean Harlow is the Sadie Thompson of the territory. Enter Gene Raymond and Mary Astor on Raymond's initial engineering assignment. Gable makes a play for Astor and it looks like the young husband will have his ideals shattered ....

"As the putteed, unshaven he-man rubber planter Gable's in his element, sustaining an unsympathetic assignment until it veers a bit.

"Harlow's elementary conception of moral standards, so far as the decent kid explorer (Raymond) is concerned, sort of gilds her lily of the fields assignment. She plays the light lady to the limit, however, not overdoing anything."

MGM remade RED DUST in 1953 as MOGAMBO, with Gable reprising his original part (21 years later!) and Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly in the Harlow and Astor roles, respectively.