Iron Man (1931)
Red Dust (1932)

August 14, 2011 - 7:00 pm

Iron Man (1931)

Directed by Todd Browning

After Lew Ayres’ Kid Mason loses a fight, his show-girl wife, Rose, takes off for Hollywood, leaving the boxer to his fast-talking manager who turns him into a champ. Rose turns back up just in time to reap the benefits for herself and her sleazeball lover, leaving the Armstrong’s manager in the cold. Sexy but predatory, Jean Harlow is every man’s nightmare, so there is not much of a happy ending. Loaned out to Universal, Harlow’s persona is still developing, but hardly helped by Browning’s indifferent direction, which also does no favors for lightweight Ayres.

Universal Pictures Corp. Producer: Carl Laemmle, Jr. Screenwriter: W.R. Burnett, Francis Edward Faragoh. Cinematographer: Percy Hilburn. Editor: Milton Carruth. Cast: Lew Ayres, Robert Armstrong, Jean Harlow.

35mm, b/w, 73 min.

Red Dust (1932)

Directed by Victor Fleming

Filmed in the same over-heated, studio designed, orientalist tropics as The Letter, Red Dust features Jean Harlow as a Singapore floozie who has finally found her man in Clark Gable’s gone-native plantation owner. They are made for each other, though he doesn’t know it, because he falls for the civilized, but married, Mary Astor. Gene Raymond as the husband sports his usual non-sex-appeal, so Mary is soon in the arms of the beast, then thinks about her pocketbook. All the virtues of pre-Code cinema are here: the frank discussion about sexuality, the depiction of adultery, the unsentimental view of class relations.

MGM. Producer: Hunt Stromberg. Based on the play by Wilson Collison. Screenwriter: Wilson Collison, John Lee Mahin. Cinematographer: Harold Rosson, Arthur Edeson. Editor: Blanche Sewell. Cast: Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Gene Raymond.

Part of:

Harlow Before the Code

Search form

You are here

Iron Man (1931) Red Dust (1932)

Iron Man (1931)

Red Dust (1932)

Search form

Iron Man (1931)
Red Dust (1932)