Turns out Paul Simon was wrong. Everything does not look worse in black-and-white. “Red Dust,” the pre-code, b&w film on which 1953's "Mogambo" is based, is superior in almost every way to the newer, Technicolor remake. (The exception being that “Red Dust” has a deficiency of vitamin A, meaning Ava Gardner, who was the best thing about “Mogambo.”)
Clark Gable plays a rubber farmer named Carson in French Indochina (now Vietnam). When a prostitute from Saigon named Vantine (Jean Harlow) shows up at his plantation, the two grate on each other at first, but then get very friendly. A few weeks later, a surveyor, Gary Willis, arrives, and Carson quickly finds himself falling for Willis's classy, ladylike wife (Mary Astor). This love quadrangle plays out in the sweltering, mosquito-infested Vietnamese jungle.
My complaints about “Mogambo” included its tacked-on, sexist ending. “Red Dirt” has a better-crafted story that doesn't dishonor its characters at the end. The female leads are also better matched than in “Mogambo,” and the Willis character, played by Gene Raymond, is much more likeable. The whole story just works better, and the film looks better as well. “Red Dust” features a famous scene in which Jean Harlow bathes in a rain barrel, a scene she re-created in her 1933 film “Bombshell.”
Don't get me wrong; “Red Dust” is no “Citizen Cane.” It's a fairly typical story, with a predictable plot, and the depictions of the Vietnamese characters are downright offensive. Mostly, though, it's a fun, easy movie, delightfully trashy, and it has an important lesson: Don't leave your wife alone in the jungle with a guy who looks like Clark Gable!
3 stars out of 5
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