Red Dust (1932)

Red Dust is a 1932 American pre-Code romantic drama film directed by Victor Fleming and starring Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and Mary Astor. The film is based on the 1928 play of the same name by Wilson Collison, and was adapted for the screen by John Mahin. Red Dust is the second of six movies Gable and Harlow made together, and was produced during the pre-Code era of Hollywood. More than twenty years later, Gable would star in a remake, Mogambo (1953), with Ava Gardner starring in a variation on the Harlow role and Grace Kelly playing a part similar to one portrayed by Mary Astor in Red Dust.

The film, which is set in French Indochina, provides a view into the French colonial rubber business. This includes scenes of rubber trees being tapped for their sap; the process of coagulating the rubber with acid; native workers being rousted; gales that can blow the roof off a hut and are difficult to walk in; the spartan living quarters; the supply boat that arrives periodically; a rainy spell that lasts weeks; and tigers prowling in the jungle. The film's title is derived from the large quantities of dust that are stirred up by the storms.

In 2006, Red Dust was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Synopsis

On a rubber plantation in French Indochina during the monsoon season, the plantation's owner/manager Dennis Carson (Gable), a prostitute named Vantine (Harlow), and Barbara Willis (Astor), the wife of an engineer named Gary Willis (Raymond) are involved in a love triangle. Carson abandons an informal relationship with Vantine to pursue Barbara, but has a change of heart and returns to Vantine.

Actors