Understanding pre-Code movies gets easy after seeing MGM’s sultry romance set in an exotic, sweaty rubber plantation. The big draw is cock o’ the walk Clark Gable, who gets to flex his mustache with both Mary Astor and newly-crowned sex star Jean Harlow. Director Victor Fleming is at his best, and so is that rain barrel turned into the movies’ most famous bathtub.

Red Dust
Blu-ray
Warner Archive Collection
1932 / B&W / 1:37 Academy / 83 min. / Street Date January 27, 2026 / Available at MovieZyng / 24.99
Starring: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond, Mary Astor, Donald Crisp, Tully Marshall, Forrester Harvey, Willie Fung.
Cinematography: Harold Rosson, Arthur Edeson
Art Director: Cedric Gibbons
Costumes: Adrian
Film Editor: Blanche Sewell
Screenplay by John Mahin, Donald Ogden Stewart from a play by Wilson Collison
Produced by Victor Fleming
Directed without a credit by Victor Fleming

Old movies suddenly look new again with digital remastering, especially  Red Dust, a pre-Code sizzler that’s now 94 years old. MGM took pride in its lavish literary adaptations, but this popular show stood slightly apart from Leo the Lion’s ‘Tradition of Quality.’

Before the ax of Code enforcement fell, this picture touched on classic status for sex appeal alone. Its only other subject concern involves getting rubber sap out of Vietnamese trees, and that sounds fairly sexy as well. The romantic triangle formed between Clark Gable, Jean Harlow and Mary Astor is still hot stuff, with the slightly less famous but fully capable Ms. Astor giving Harlow a run for her money in the heavy-breathing sweepstakes. As for Gable, he was already every woman’s dream and an identification figure for men. Perhaps the most likeably natural masculine star of Hollywood’s golden era, Gable makes you believe the claims that he bedded untold numbers of co-stars — and whatever other gorgeous girls happened to wander by.

Upriver from Saigon (here pronounced Say-Gone), Dennis Carson (Clark Gable) runs a rubber plantation from a rustic house in the middle of a rain forest shared with uncooperative natives and hungry tigers. (Remember, never get out of the boat.)  Prostitute Vantine (Jean Harlow) remains a guest for a while, long enough for Carson to overcome his initial dislike and welcome her into his bed. Then Carson’s new engineer Gary Willis (Gene Raymond) arrives to help expand the plantation. Gary has brought his new wife Barbara (Mary Astor), a woman unaccustomed to roughing it out in the wild. Vantine discreetly exits on the same boat, but when it breaks down she’s forced to return, which makes things awkward all around. After Carson cures Gary of a nasty jungle fever, the husband goes to work in the field, leaving Barbara alone with the very interested Dennis. Sparks fly during a tropical storm, and the little plantation house becomes adultery central. Not one to let a good man go, Vantine flaunts her easy virtue in Barbara’s face, including taking a bath in the house’s water cistern — where both Barbara and Dennis can get a good look.

Did Russ Meyer see this picture, at age 10?  A quality product all the way, Red Dust was produced and directed by Victor Fleming, although no director credit is given.  ^*  All fun aside, this is a good movie, with a lot to recommend it. The screenplay is intelligent and witty and the characters are likably imperfect. It also has twice the chemistry of most Hollywood movies, pre- or post- Code. As a contented ‘fallen woman’ Harlow is particularly interesting. She doesn’t bother to hide her profession. She also doesn’t think she should be considered an Untouchable, at least not in this godforsaken corner of creation.

Clark Gable’s ‘noble bwana’ transplanted to Southeast Asia does his share of strutting, bellowing, and dishing out abuse at Vantine. He knows how to hit the bottle and doesn’t worry about what behaviors might be liberated in doing so. Gable’s broad smile can express honest pride or leering lust, as needed. Whatever he’s got, it works, for even when covered with smeary Vietnamese mud he’s got plenty of sex appeal. This is not a particularly dirty mind speaking, but we readily believe that Gable and many of his leading ladies were making it on the side. Natural acting is where you find it.

The toughest role is taken by the formidable, very classy Mary Astor, perhaps the only other Hollywood personality with a real-life boudoir reputation to challenge that of her co-stars. Below those sad eyes beats a heart that knows desire. Astor’s Barbara thaws from prim discomfort to total submission:  “Oh, this is rather primitive, isn’t it?”  Dennis and Barbara take a walk around the plantation to see how liquid rubber is made into a flexible solid. When was tabletop chemistry ever so sensual?  They’re caught in the rain on the way back, and when Nature takes its course we believe every soggy embrace. By the time Dennis realizes he must somehow dump Barbara so that life can continue for the foursome, Red Dust has worked itself up into a fine hormonal frenzy.

The famous scene is of course the one in which Harlow bobs about topless in what looks like a slightly oversized rain barrel. It’s all for the benefit of the strait-laced Barbara but we in the audience know it’s meant for us. Although the scene would seem a natural for excision, I don’t remember it ever being cut for old TV screenings. Hollywood sex ‘n’ glamour had to have winners and losers. Movies always made it seem as though people on the outside of an intimate triangle are non-playing nonentities. Gene Raymond’s Gary Willis is the thankless role here. The husband is allowed some dignity but must spend the entire movie out of the loop, so to speak. The weaker couple ends up being the civilized outsiders — when Barbara gets home, will she stray again?  It’s easy to imagine an alternate version in which Dennis and Vantine come out of this situation looking more like low-life scum.

MGM manages a convincing location feel by packing in the greenery. Ace cameramen Harold Rosson and Arthur Edeson slightly overexpose some exteriors, giving the impression of a blazing sun cutting through the forest canopy. Filters do the rest. As for the house interiors, they’re a tropical fantasy. Fellow planter Tully Marshall remarks that he’d also be chasing Vantine around the veranda, if he were thirty years younger. What’s stopping him? He can walk… . With Willie Fung making goo-goo eyes at all the hugging and kissing going on, the house is a primitive delight.

Red Dust was of course relocated to Africa for a color remake by John Ford, 1953’s Mogambo. It brought back Clark Gable as an older but still spry big game guide. Ava Gardner took Harlow’s spot, promoted by the Production Code to the slightly more respectable status of an international playgirl. Grace Kelly is the prudish equivalent of Mary Astor. It’s a good movie. Mogambo manages to stage almost the exact same climax, but the sex quotient is way lower on the scale. I don’t believe it’s implied that anybody slept with anybody. That’s Hollywood censorship in a nutshell.

We were eager to see the Warner Archive Collection Blu-ray of Red Dust; the WAC’s digitally remastered classic studio titles do what earlier video formats could not — replicate these great old shows to look as good or better than they did when new.

Red Dust was once described as having printing elements in poor shape. You’ll not think that watching this disc. It starts with a pristine Lion logo, picture and sound; it’s one of those Leos we once laughed at because we expect a third roar that doesn’t come. The old DVD was great but the texture of this Blu-ray better captures the feel of the cinematography, effected to visually communicate the tropical heat. Victor Fleming doesn’t go in for too many close-ups, but with this much detail we interact just closely with the slightly wider framing.

The show projects the screen appeal of Gable and Harlow at full power; new viewers will likely come away as fans of Mary Astor as well.

The vintage extras begin with two short subjects in early Two-color Technicolor, featuring singer Eleanor Thatcher. They are not remastered. The musical two-reeler Over the Counter stars Sidney Toler and Franklin Pangborn; favorite Dorothy Coonan Wellman is in the chorus. The second musical short Wild People is a silly item about a remote radio broadcast — from New Guinea. Also of interest will be the Screen Guild Theater radio adaptation of Red Dust from 1940. It stars Clark Gable and Ann Southern.

The old DVD had only a trailer. The surviving copy is actually a Spanish language version, which allows us to read the usual text hyperbole in a different language. The audio track synchronized to it is for the English version, however.

Reviewed by Glenn Erickson

Red Dust
Blu-ray rates:
Movie: Excellent
Video: Excellent
Sound: Excellent
Supplements:
Radio adaptation from 1940 with Clark Gable and Ann Southern
Technicolor MGM short subjects Over the Counter and Wild People
Original (Spanish) Theatrical Trailer.
Deaf and Hearing-impaired Friendly? YES; Subtitles: English (feature only)
Packaging: One Blu-ray in Keep case
Reviewed: February 3, 2026
(7466dust)

^*  The only other MGM picture of the time with no director credit that comes to mind is  Hollywood Party, but that seems to be because it had multiple directors. Are there many more?

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