7 - Red Dust: The Erotic Screen Image

Summary

Red Dust, released by Warner Brothers in 1932, and directed by Victor Fleming, opens with a kind of prologue that introduces the Clark Gable character and establishes the setting: Gable is foreman of a large rubber plantation an arduous day's trek from Saigon (amazingly, everyone in the film pronounces it “Say-gon”). A monsoon is approaching, and Gable is furious that so many of the trees have been tapped too young (good rubber cannot be made from such trees).

Jean Harlow arrives by boat, expecting to leave when the boat does. She first manifests herself as an offscreen voice, and then is seen from Gable's point of view. Gable is sullen in her presence. His elderly friend (Tully Marshall) chides him for not recognizing a natural playmate in this beautiful young woman. This sets the stage for the most entertaining scene in the film, Harlow drawing upon her repertory of techniques of wit to break down Gable's sullenness: for example, by relating how Roquefort cheese is made (by slapping the sheep – “Ewes, don't you call them?” – around the udders), although she never gets the full story out; by mocking Gable for his sulking (“I'll go peacefully, officer,” she says, as though she were a prostitute and he a cop).

Harlow takes it as her task to make Gable laugh, and when she finally succeeds, he pulls her toward him and opines that she is not so bad after all.