Red Dust

Directed by Victor Fleming, Red Dust follows Clark Gable’s Dennis Carson as he attempts to keep his rubber-plantation business afloat despite certain professional and personal complications. Filmmaker Fleming, armed with John Lee Mahin’s screenplay, delivers a mostly underwhelming drama that fares especially poorly within its uninvolving first half, as the movie’s been suffused with a very stagy, very talky feel that does little to disguise its theatrical origins – with the less-than-riveting feel compounded by a lackluster narrative that emphasizes Carson’s far-from-fascinating day-to-day exploits. It is, as such, impossible to work up much interest in or enthusiasm for the back-and-forth banter between Carson and Jean Harlow’s Vantine, which is surprising, to say the least, given that both Gable and Harlow are as compelling and stirring here as one might’ve anticipated. And although the movie admittedly does improve once the appealing third-act love triangle rolls around, Red Dust has, by that point, confirmed its place as a relentlessly hit-and-miss endeavor that is, for the most part, more the latter than the former.

** out of ****