“BORN TO LOVE … two untamed hearts in a world of their own!”
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer / Dir. Victor Fleming
73, 76, or 82 mins.
Production: August 23, 1932 — October 1, 1932 (Harlow took a brief week’s break from production after Paul Bern’s death in September).
Release date: October 22, 1932
Release status: Available to watch online and on DVD.
Cast: Jean Harlow (Vantine Jefferson), Clark Gable (Dennis Carson), Mary Astor (Barbara Willis), Gene Raymond (Gary Willis), Donald Crisp (Guidon), Willie Fung (Hoy), Tully Marshall (McQuarg), Forrester Harvey (Limey)
Summary: A surveyor’s wife (Mary Astor) and a ‘lady of the night’ from upriver in Saigon with a fake Southern society girl cover (Jean Harlow) are a misplaced and unwanted feminine presence on Dennis Carson (Clark Gable)’s Indochina rubber farm–complicated relationship dynamics between the women and their entangled love interests ensue.
Trivia:
- Harold Rosson and Arthur Edeson did the photography for Red Dust–the first name would become Harlow’s third husband one year out from the film’s production, in September 1933. They’d divorce just eight months later.
- Red Dust was initially slated as a property for Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, who were waning in popularity by 1932 and leaving a gap to be filled by a hot new screen couple like Harlow and Gable; MGM had noticed they paired particularly well together after their brief exchanges in 1931’s The Secret Six.
- Variety noted that the film was banned in Berlin.
- Harlow’s second husband, MGM producer Paul Bern, famously committed suicide while Harlow was at work on this film. Bravely, she returned to work after only a ten day absence, at the age of only twenty-one, and completed her work on the film (including the iconic barrel bath scene!) without even delaying the schedule.
- Harlow was a little more carefree around cast and crew just before that life-altering incident; sound engineer William ‘Bill’ Edmondson told Harlow biographer David Stenn that she stood up bare-chested from an initial take of the rain barrel scene, shouting “Something for the boys in the lab!” before director Fleming pulled the film from view.
- Harlow showed a Crawford type of sensibility on Red Dust that couldn’t be said of some other studio headliners. Prop man Harry Edwards told David Stenn that instead of running to hide in her dressing room between takes, Harlow “would hang around with the crew like she was one of ’em” and that “she was a regular gal, and we [the crew] loved her for it.” She even threatened to walk off the set when the production manager tried to cut costs by cheating the crew out of their coffee break.
Stills and ad art:
Harlow Heaven 