"Red Dust," or Sweat Surrender

The 1932 film "Red Dust" is ironically titled -- dust has very little to do with what happens in the movie. Moisture, however, plays a starring role -- moisture in the form of sweat, rain, steam and humidity, with a very special appearance by Jean Harlow's bathwater.

Set on a rubber plantation in Indochina, with the nearest large city being Saigon (they pronounced it "say-gone" in those days), "Red Dust" deals with Denny (Clark Gable), a rough-and-tumble plantation boss who's torn between two women -- earthy goodtime girl Vantine (Jean Harlow) and icy yet smouldering Babs (Mary Astor). The three of them face one crisis after another -- windstorms! Rainstorms! Tigers! Fever! The Chinese cook's bad teeth!

Vantine appears first -- we see her in bed, where she has gone to sleep and hide from a drunken worker (Donald Crisp), and she's illuminated by Denny's flashlight. This happens on a steamy night when Denny just happens to be in a bad mood -- he's on one of his periodic rants to the wizened McQuarg (Tully Marshall) about how he'd love to leave the whole grueling business: "Swallowing dust one month, wading in mud the next -- just so some old woman can take a hot water bottle to bed with her."

Vantine has taken the boat (On water!) to the plantation to hide out from the authorities. She doesn't say why she's in trouble, but from her appearance and filmy wardrobe we can guess.

Vantine: What else do you do around here besides work? Know any games?

McQuarg: If it was the summer of 1894, I'd play games with you, sister.

Then she tries to strike up a conversation with Denny:



In a nice touch that Howard Hawks would steal -- er, adopt -- in "To Have and Have Not," Denny and Vantine make up different names for each other. She calls him Fred, and he calls her Lily. And they end up playing other games together, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

Both Harlow and Gable are surprisingly assured in their roles -- even more so for Harlow. Her star was still on the rise and it was during the making of this film that her husband, MGM executive Paul Bern, committed suicide. But Harlow gets all the film's best lines and knocks them out of the park -- for instance, while cleaning a bird cage, she asks the occupant, "Whaddya been eating? Cement?"

Fast forward a few weeks, and Vantine is ready to board the boat back to civilization. Arriving on that very same boat is Willis, the plantation's new surveyor (Gene Raymond), and his wife, Babs.

You can tell that the Willises aren't quite prepared for the rugged conditions they find -- they've packed tennis rackets, and when she sees the plantation headquarters, Babs asks where the main house is. On top of everything else, Willis has a tropical fever and he spends the next week or so sweating like crazy. Denny nurses Willis through his fever, and earns the gratitude of Babs. He likes that -- he likes her. Meanwhile, Vantine's back -- the boat has had mechanical trouble.

So there's a full house, and once Willis has recovered, Denny sends him on several long-distance missions so that he can make a play for Babs. He takes her on a tour of the plantation, and they get caught in a downpour, which has a way of breaking down, um, formalities:


Vantine can't figure out why Denny goes for a cool customer like Babs. But she just goes her own merry way while she's waiting for the boat to be repaired. This includes using the camp water supply as a bathtub, with Denny as a flustered observer -- not flustered for his sake, but for Babs's sake, for God's sake:



(By the way -- when Harlow basically played herself in the great 1933 Hollywood satire "Bombshell," there's a scene when her character, Lola Burns, has to do "Red Dust" retakes in the bath barrel.)

Despite Denny's infatuation, it's pretty clear that Babs isn't right for him. Unlike Vantine, she calls him "Dennis" and wouldn't think of joking around or pitching a double entendre. And when Denny goes to visit Willis in a remote location, he finally understands how much the guy loves his wife and how out of place Babs would be on a rubber plantation. (Babs, in fact, is the film's only sweat-free character, making her seem even less human.)

So Denny gets noble and comes back to break up with Babs. She doesn't take it well, and she has a gun, so Denny gets shot. Then Willis arrives, and Vantine steps in:

   

For them, the plantation is home, sweat home.

Here are full credits for "Red Dust," and a trailer:

"Flying Down to Rio" and the Power of Intimate Dance

Fred Astaire made his film debut in 1933's "Dancing Lady" as a dancer named, um, Fred Astaire. Preceding that film there had been a screen test where the evaluator wrote these infamous words: "Can't act. Slightly bald. Can dance a little."

In his second film, 1933's "Flying Down to Rio," Astaire has worked his way up to a fictional last name -- he's Fred Ayres, musician and best friend to dashing bandleader Roger Bond (Gene Raymond). The dominant storyline of the movie is a romance between Roger and the fair Belinha (Dolores Del Rio), even though she has been promised in wedlock to Roger's best friend (Raul Roulien).

But in film and dance history, of course, the importance of "Flying Down to Rio" has very little to do with that plot -- it has to do with the pairing of Astaire and Ginger Rogers as a sensual, elegant, in-sync dance team.

By the time she appeared in "Flying Down to Rio," Rogers had already appeared in two huge musical hits for Warner Bros. -- "42nd Street" and "Gold Diggers of 1933" -- that contained elaborate production numbers choreographed by Busby Berkeley. But she really hadn't been a featured dancer in either film -- in fact, in "42nd Street" her character is chosen to replace the tempramental star (Bebe Daniels), but Rogers steps aside to give the role to the endearing, leadfooted Ruby Keeler in a star-making turn.

So even though Rogers was the better known of the Astaire-Rogers pair, she really hadn't had a chance to show her dancing chops onscreen.

Here Rogers is the band's singer, Honey Hale, and she and Astaire aren't romantic partners, at least not overtly -- they just like to dance together, and "The Carioca" is the first opportunity they get to strut their stuff:



And in one other scene, Astaire does some freestyle stuff, and the actors look like they actually are enjoying it, not just pretending:



Astaire comes to this movie fully formed -- of course, he had been a star on Broadway, so his dancing style was established. And his distinctive style of dress is already evident -- button-down collar, tie tucked into his pants, contrasting belt, two-toned shoes to make sure we're looking where we're supposed to be looking.

The finale of the film is the fabled "girls on biplanes" number, and even though it's clearly shot in the studio, it still has the ability to make your palms clammy:

   

The big finish is a nod to the tremendously successful Warner musicals, but what makes "Flying Down to Rio" unique is that it -- and other Astaire-Rogers musicals -- is an anti-Warner's musical. The power comes not from spectacle but from a couple, dancing with and playing off of each other. That's what makes their performances together timeless.

Here are the full film credits, and here's the trailer: