Classic Films in Focus: RED DUST (1932)

Steamy Pre-Code sensuality drives the plot of Victor Fleming’s Red Dust (1932), in which Clark Gable and Jean Harlow prove the powder keg appeal of their onscreen chemistry. The story unfolds against the equally heated backdrop of an exotic tropical location, where tigers and torrential rains mirror the violent natural forces at work in human hearts. Like many classic films with Eastern settings, Red Dust suffers from an Orientalist attitude toward the native workers and a horribly stereotypical Chinese domestic, but Gable and Harlow are so good that the movie works in spite of it, and Mary Astor gives an excellent performance as the married rival who loses her moral high ground by falling for Harlow’s man.

Gable stars as Dennis Carson, the head of a remote rubber plantation in Indochina. When his masculine world is invaded by streetwise Vantine (Jean Harlow), Carson complains loudly but soon takes advantage of the situation and Vantine’s considerable charms. Vantine hopes for a real relationship, but Carson throws her over when the well-heeled Barbara (Mary Astor) arrives with her naive husband, Gary (Gene Raymond). After Carson nurses Gary through a dangerous fever, he earns the younger man’s fervent admiration, which makes Carson feel guilty for his affair with Barbara. Jealousy erupts into violence as the monsoon season bears down and Gary finally begins to suspect Carson’s designs on his wife.

Red Dust was the second film in which both Gable and Harlow appeared but the first to capitalize on their sex appeal as leads; they work together so well because both have screen personalities that radiate toughness and animal lust. Gable looks like a guy whose idea of romance is a rough and tumble roll in the hay, and Harlow is just the kind of girl to like it that way. The surprise for us - and for Carson and Vantine - is that their attraction to each other becomes something more lasting and substantial. Carson chases Barbara because she appears as a rarity in his world, but it’s clear that she can never belong to it, and Gary’s boyish innocence is too pathetic and pure even for the worldly Carson to destroy. Vantine might be a woman of easy virtue, but she ultimately has more integrity than Barbara; she isn’t the one committing adultery on the heels of her honeymoon, and her lies protect both Gary and Barbara from their own foolishness. Their spontaneous acts of altruism and generosity assure us that Carson and Vantine deserve each other; whatever their faults, they’re better people than even they realize until the moment of truth arrives.

The setting for the story provides arresting images, from the tiger prowling the forest to Harlow naked in a rain barrel, but it also falls back on the usual clichés of lazy coolies and simple-minded house servants. The rubber plantation workers are represented as so much human cattle, with some pointed remarks about their eagerness to rape white women thrown in, but the most grating element for modern viewers is Willie Fung’s idiotic Hoy, who unfortunately gets the movie’s last line. Fung made a career of these kinds of roles, and it’s not his fault that parts for Asian actors were so limited in classic Hollywood, but his Chinese version of Stepin Fetchit is almost impossible to watch. Donald Crisp’s Guidon is an obnoxious drunk, but even he fares better than Hoy, who serves as the butt of a running gag that isn’t funny in the first place.

For more of Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, see Hold Your Man (1933), China Seas (1935), and Harlow’s final film, Saratoga (1937). Victor Fleming, who was uncredited as the director of Red Dust, is best remembered for his work on The Wizard of Oz (1939) and Gone with the Wind (1939), but he also worked with Harlow on Bombshell (1933). Look for Mary Astor in The Maltese Falcon (1941), The Palm Beach Story (1942), and Meet Me in St. Louis (1944). John Ford remade Red Dust as Mogambo in 1953, with Clark Gable starring once more; Ava Gardner and Grace Kelly both earned Oscar nominations for their performances as the female rivals for his love.

Classic Films in Focus: BOMBSHELL (1933)

Two of Jean Harlow’s film titles became permanently associated with her image; one is Platinum Blonde (1931) and the other is Bombshell (1933), a very Hollywood look at the life and trials of a fictional leading lady. Under the uncredited direction of Victor Fleming, Bombshell presents a comedic take on the hazards of stardom, with Harlow playing a role for which she already had plenty of personal experience. Although it’s a funny picture with a cast of memorable performers, Bombshell also suggests the darker side of Tinseltown fame, since Harlow’s harried movie queen finds that there’s really no exit from the gilded cage in which she resides.

Harlow plays Hollywood star Lola Burns, who is adored by her fans but beset by leeches and opportunists on every side. Lola’s fame and the studio’s overeager publicity head, Space Hanlon (Lee Tracy), conspire to make her love life impossible, while her nutty relatives thwart her desire for peace at home. Sick of her crazy life, Lola runs away, but neither the studio nor Lola’s family will let go of their meal ticket that easily.

Although she is remembered today primarily as a sex symbol, Harlow shows a natural gift for comedy, and she easily keeps up with her hammy costars. She throws several impressive fits throughout the picture, tossing her platinum curls and stamping her little foot to great effect. Lee Tracy and Frank Morgan give her plenty to fume about with their troublesome characters; Harlow’s screen presence is evident in her ability to keep such inveterate scene-stealers from walking off with her film. Una Merkel, however, has little to do as Lola’s secretary, which is a shame since she knows how to work a comic character just as well as any of her costars. Franchot Tone adds class as the latest man to enter Lola’s life, the well-heeled Gifford Middleton, with C. Aubrey Smith and Mary Forbes as his parents.

Bombshell is ostensibly a comedy, and it does offer some very funny scenes and performances, but there’s also something terribly sad about Lola’s situation. She ends the movie no better than she started, even though we long to see her throw off the mooching father, the opportunistic secretary, and the two-faced publicity man once and for all. She never has a meaningful relationship with another person, even though her desire to adopt a baby shows how much she longs for it. Her career is ultimately nothing more than a glamorous trap from which she cannot escape, even though we know that an actress’ fame lasts only as long as her looks and her youth. Harlow herself would die at the tragically young age of 26, right at the height of her popularity, but her three marriages and two divorces indicate that she must have known something of Lola’s struggle to find real love.

Look for Ted Healy, Pat O’Brien, and Louise Beavers in supporting roles. For more of Jean Harlow, see Platinum Blonde (1931), Wife vs. Secretary (1936), and Saratoga (1937). You’ll find Lee Tracy in Doctor X (1932) and Dinner at Eight (1933). Frank Morgan, best remembered as the Wizard in The Wizard of Oz (1939), also turns up in The Great Ziegfeld (1936), Dimples (1936), and The Shop Around the Corner (1940). Franchot Tone gets better leading man roles in Dancing Lady (1933) and opposite Harlow in The Girl from Missouri (1934). Victor Fleming, the uncredited director of some half dozen films in the 1930s, is best known for his work on Gone with the Wind (1939) and The Wizard of Oz (1939), but he also directed Captains Courageous (1937) and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1941).

Classic Films in Focus: DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE (1941)

Like Dracula and Frankenstein, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde serves as a touchstone for literary and cinematic horror. Directed by Victor Fleming, the 1941 film is one of many screen adaptations of Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tale of the id unleashed, and like most movies it takes certain liberties with its source material. Although it is not generally regarded as the best film version to tackle the text, the 1941 Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde remains worth watching today primarily for its impressive A-list cast, which includes not only Spencer Tracy in the dual title role but Ingrid Bergman and Lana Turner as two love interests who attract both the monster and the man.

Tracy leads as Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose engagement to the angelic Beatrix (Lana Turner) is jeopardized by his obsessive efforts to separate the good and evil sides of human nature. Determined to pursue his research, Jekyll becomes his own test subject and thereby sets loose his darker half, Hyde, on the city of London. Sadistically cruel and unfettered by Jekyll’s better nature, Hyde ensnares a barmaid named Ivy (Ingrid Bergman) as his unwilling mistress and soon threatens everyone whom his alter ego holds dear.

Tracy’s performance as both Jekyll and Hyde is interesting if not great. The Oscar-winning actor certainly had better roles over the course of his career, but his intense, burning eyes and hard-edged mouth suggest the powerful beast within even when he’s playing the more humane doctor. Film buffs more frequently note the performances of his lovely costars, largely because the two actresses swapped roles before filming began. Bergman was originally chosen to play the saintly Bea, while Turner was to have the bad girl role. Having claimed the the more compelling part, Bergman’s performance is perhaps the most nuanced and moving of the entire film, although you won’t buy her attempt at an English accent for a second.

The sexual themes of the film don’t lurk beneath the surface; they burst out at the seams, charging every interaction between the central characters. Jekyll’s relationship with Beatrix mixes barely repressed desire with utter disregard for her feelings and expectations; he already loves his research more than he loves her as the story begins, and his transformation into the more openly selfish and destructive Hyde is anything but a surprise after that. In one particularly memorable scene, a hallucinating Hyde lashes a pair of horses, one light and the other dark, while the horses transform into the tormented figures of Ivy and Bea.

It’s a tribute to Stevenson’s creative influence that so many other film treatments of this tale have been done over the decades. See the 1931 version with Fredric March to compare the two casts and their approaches to the major characters; the consensus is that March gives the superior performance in the dual title roles. John Barrymore also offers an interpretation of the man and monster in the silent 1920 adaptation. For a different take on the story, try Mary Reilly (1996) or even The Nutty Professor (1963). The duality of the Jekyll/Hyde character continues to fascinate audiences and filmmakers; we see new versions of the story every few years, but the Tracy and March adaptations do much to help shape these later productions.

Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde earned three Oscar nominations but went home empty-handed from the 1942 awards. See Captains Courageous (1937) and Boys Town (1938) for Spencer Tracy’s Oscar-winning roles; he was nominated a total of nine times for Best Actor. Ingrid Bergman earned seven nominations with three wins, although she was not nominated for her most famous role as Humphrey Bogart’s lost love in Casablanca (1942). Lana Turner earned her only Oscar nomination for Peyton Place (1957), but she is best remembered today for her femme fatale role in The Postman Always Rings Twice (1946). Don’t miss veteran actor Donald Crisp as Bea’s worried father; a silent film star who played Ulysses S. Grant in D.W. Griffith’s landmark film, The Birth of a Nation (1915), Crisp weathered the transition to talkies and won his own Best Supporting Actor award for How Green Was My Valley (1941).

An earlier version of this review originally appeared on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content.

Classic Films in Focus: THE WIZARD OF OZ (1939)

Certainly one of the top ten classic movies on almost any list, The Wizard of Oz (1939) has never ceased to attract new fans, and it remains the definitive adaptation of L. Frank Baum's classic novel, despite many contenders to that title both before and after. Its winning combination of story, spectacle, and sound draws viewers into its magical world, and, unlike Dorothy, they rarely yearn to go home. Directed by Victor Fleming (with help from George Cukor, Mervyn Le Roy, and King Vidor) and starring the divinely adorable Judy Garland, The Wizard of Oz may well be the perfect first film for the classic movie newcomer.

Garland stars as Dorothy Gale, a young Kansas girl who finds herself transported to the fabulous land of Oz after a cyclone carries her away from home. Unfortunately for Dorothy, her house crushes a wicked witch, which raises the ire of the witch's even more wicked sister (Margaret Hamilton). Dorothy sets off for the Emerald City in the hope that the powerful wizard there can return her to Kansas, and along the way she acquires three companions: a sympathetic Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), a sentimental Tin Man (Jack Haley), and a reluctant Lion (Bert Lahr). At the wizard's command, the friends attempt to earn their desired rewards by defeating the witch and her strange minions, but the seemingly Great and Terrible Oz turns out to be a rather different character from what they expected.

Beautifully nuanced performances from each and every actor make the characters live in our hearts. Garland is impossibly girlish and sweet, her big brown eyes round with a sense of wonder that we can't help but share. Bolger, Haley, and Lahr all endow their inhuman characters with tremendous humanity; they are funny because they are so likably real, and there's a sweetly platonic sense of romance in the Scarecrow's relationship with Dorothy. It's no wonder that she'll miss him "most of all." Margaret Hamilton sets the bar for wicked witches everywhere, and Frank Morgan pops up all over the place as an assortment of different characters, suggesting the dreamlike nature of Dorothy's adventure.

Even kids who have never known a world without 3D and CGI can appreciate the visual artistry of The Wizard of Oz. Its special effects have stood the test of time amazingly well, from the cyclone bearing down on Dorothy's farm to the army of winged monkeys filling the sky. The costumes and makeup still look fantastic, especially now that carefully restored versions of the film are available on DVD and Blu-ray. If anything, the effects and costumes might be too good for younger viewers; it's best to think about a child's tolerance for winged monkey attacks, scarecrow dismemberment, and witch melting before leaving your youngster to watch the picture alone. On the plus side, that first glimpse of Technicolor Oz is a moment of pure movie magic, an epiphany about film's unique ability to transport us to other worlds and change the way we see our own.

The Wizard of Oz earned six Oscar nominations; it won two, and Garland won a special Juvenile Award for her performance. It might have done better at the Academy Awards had it not come out in the single greatest year in Hollywood history, but that year would not have been as great without it. For more of Judy Garland and Ray Bolger, see The Harvey Girls (1946). The character actors who make up the cast of The Wizard of Oz turn up in hundreds of classic movies; they were some of Hollywood's hardest working performers, even though they never won or were even nominated for Academy Awards. Garland, of course, has become one of the most beloved stars of all time. See her in Meet Me in St. Louis (1944), Easter Parade (1948), and A Star is Born (1954) for more of her best performances.

This review was originally posted on Examiner.com. The author retains all rights to this content. 

For more about Judy Garland, read "10 classic movies starring Judy Garland" on Examiner.com.