Sample chapter from my Jean Harlow book

RED DUST

Director: Victor Fleming

Screenplay: John Lee Mahin, Donald Ogden Stewart based on the play by Wilson Collison

Producers: Victor Fleming, Hunt Stromberg

Cinematography: Harold Rosson

Film Editing: Blanche Sewell

Cast:

Clark Gable (Dennis Carson), Jean Harlow (Vantine), Gene Raymond (Gary Willis), Mary Astor (Barbara Willis), Donald Crisp (Guidon), Tully Marshall (McQuarg), Forrester Harvey (Limey), Willie Fung (Hoy)

Released October 22, 1932

Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Running Time: 83 minutes

Black and White

Estimated budget: $408,000

Estimated gross: $1,223,000

Clark Gable and Jean Harlow had been novice actors when they last appeared together in the film The Secret Six. Now as they began to embark upon the stardom that would continue to advance each of their careers, the two rekindled the friendship they had made on the earlier film, and were delighted to be working with one another again. They liked and respected each other, and circumstances on this project resulted in their friendship becoming even stronger.

Red Dust is set in Indochina where Gable plays Dennis Carson, owner of a rubber plantation who struggles to manage it during monsoon season. Jean Harlow is Vantine, a prostitute hiding out on the plantation due to charges in Saigon.

This is established in some of Gable and Harlow’s first dialog together:

Dennis Carson: Why'd you get off the boat at all? You know it doesn't stop here again for four weeks, don't you?

Vantine: Sure I do. Think I'm overjoyed about it? But, its just got to be, that's all.

Dennis Carson: Well, then?

Vantine: I left the boat here for the same reason I took it at Saigon.

Dennis Carson: What reason?

Vantine: I got mixed up in a little trouble and I thought I'd stay out of town 'til the Gendarmes forgot about it.

Dennis Carson: And what a cast iron nerve you've got.

Vantine: You have to have in my line. But, don't worry, big boy, I'll stay out from under foot. I'll even pay for my board if you insist on it nicely.

Despite the hot, dreary conditions, Vantine is comes off as comfortably secure, cavorting about in a carefree way and offering witty wisecracks. Her manner eventually entices the rugged Carson, and they have an affair. Their unlikely romances is interrupted when engineer Gary Willis (Gene Raymond) arrives on the plantation with his wife Barbara (Mary Astor). Carson and Mrs. Willis develop an attraction, much to Vantine’s jealous chagrin.

The conclusion has Carson ready to take Barbara away from Willis, but soon becomes remorseful of doing something so terrible to the younger man who looks up to him with such respect. Caught seducing Vantine, Carson is confronted by Barbara and he tells her he has never been a one-woman man. Carson does this so that Barbara will despise him and return to her husband. However, she shoots Carson just as Dennis rushes in. He asks what happened, and Carson protects Barbara by stating, “I made a pass at her and she shot me.” Vantine, realizing what is going on, follows along with Carson’s story, supporting Barbara while understanding she is really covering for Carson. Willis, angered that his hero would do such a thing, plans to leave the plantation with his wife by morning. He never realizes the affair that took place.

Director Victor Fleming does a good job of making Red Dust a rugged “man’s picture,” while also offering a romantic situation that contains female characters with greater dimension than found in other such movies . Gable’s character of Dennis Carson is torn between the sexually alluring Vantine and the high class Barbara who has fallen for him. Stuck in between them is Willis, Barbara’s husband, who loves his wife and idolizes his new friend Carson. Willis is young, enthusiastic, and looks up to total-man Carson in a bit of naïve hero-worship that clouds him from noticing what is evident to others. Jean Harlow stands out as one who is engaged in the romantic complications to an extent, and later spends time as a pithy observer.

It is impressive that Jean Harlow turns in such of a consistently brilliant performance when one considers how complicated her personal life had become during the filming. Just as she was about to begin shooting Red Dust, Jean married MGM executive Paul Bern. A very powerful man at the studio, and in the industry, Bern had befriended Jean early on, helped her to get roles, and was instrumental in her being hired by MGM. Jean owed much of her current success to Bern. When the two of them married, people in the industry were baffled. Seeing them together, such as when Jean escorted Bern to the premiere of the MGM movie Grand Hotel, was not surprising. Bern was kind and supportive to actors, and would often squire attractive young hopefuls to various events. But he was a plain looking, middle-aged, ordinary sort who did not fit alongside someone like the beautiful Jean Harlow, who was known as filmdom’s most promising screen sexpot.

Jean did not like people mistaking her screen characters for who she was in real life, which was the polar opposite. She was attracted to Paul Bern for his kindness and benevolence. When she was told gossipy stories about Bern’s alleged sexless nature (he was rumored to be poorly endowed and unable to please a woman) it impressed her that Paul loved her at a pure and genuine level and was not just sexually drawn to her beauty. The marriage was supported by Jean’s manipulative mother and her out-of-work stepfather, Marino Bello, because they hoped Bern would invest in some ideas they had. It would also assumed, of course, that the marriage would benefit Jean’s career.

As this text concentrates on Jean Harlow’s screen work and is not a biography, we only discuss this aspect of Jean’s life because it relates directly to this production. Two months into their marriage, in the midst of production on Red Dust, Paul Bern stripped naked, stood in front of a full length mirror, and put a bullet in his head. At least this has been the official story. Suicide was the determination of detectives who examined the crime scene. However, some have claimed that he was murdered and the powerful at MGM covered it up. There are plenty of Jean Harlow biographies listed in this book’s Bibliography that will offer more details as to the death of Paul Bern and specific events surrounding it, as well as its aftermath. This text’s concern is how this tragedy in Jean Harlow’s life affected her work on what has become one of her classic films.

Jean collapsed upon hearing of her husband’s death, and stayed at her mother’s home. People outside of Mother Jean’s house reported to the press that they could hear Jean’s loud anguished crying inside. Production on Red Dust was put on hold while Jean Harlow dealt with the tragedy. Newspaper reports regularly carried stories sorting out the situation, offering different theories, and gave some information about Bern’s life before he met Harlow. These stories alleged Bern to have had a rather tumultuous past, including having been married previously, and that his first wife committed suicide.

At first Harlow neglected speaking to the press, being too overcome with grief. Some newspapers wondered if her career was over, citing past actresses like Mabel Normand, Mary Miles Minter, and Edna Purviance who had lost their careers due to scandals involving high profile deaths (such as the murder of William Desmond Taylor). Jean’s stepfather, Marino Bello, had been on a fishing boat with her co-star Clark Gable when news of Bern’s death reached them. Bello told the press, “The whole thing is a mystery to us,” and denied other newspaper reports of quarrelling and separate visits to night clubs, adding, “The only times Paul and Jean have gone to nightclubs since their marriage, they were together.”

Jean Harlow returned to the Red Dust set about four weeks after Bern’s death, and at that time was finally able to talk to the press. “I simply cannot talk about the tragic event of the past four weeks. It is something inexplicable. I am trying hard to concentrate on work. That is why I went back to the studio. Work has been my salvation. It has kept me from going mad.” Back on the set, Jean relied on the strength of the cast, especially Clark Gable, who provided the emotional support she needed.

Initially, things were playful during filming. In a bathtub scene, Jean stood up, bared her top and said “this is for the boys in the lab.” Director Fleming ripped the film out of the camera before the “boys in the lab” got to see the footage. He realized bootleg film of a topless Jean Harlow would fetch large sums, and he didn’t want his production to be responsible for a lot of dupes floating around the black market. Things were much more somber after Bern’s death, when Harlow returned to the production, but Jean’s acting throughout Red Dust maintains its pace and never misses a beat. It is, arguably, an even finer performance than Red Headed Woman, as Harlow continues to improve with each successive film. Delivering her wisecracks with precise timing and effective delivery, Harlow is every bit as instrumental in the success of Red Dust as is Clark Gable. Both receive star billing above the title.

Gene Raymond, as Willis, offers a good boyish presence. Raymond would later score in several musical comedies, but would enter the service during World War Two. After joining the United States Air Force as a commissioned lieutenant, Gene Raymond served as an observer aboard B-17 anti-submarine flights, served with the 97th bomb group, and became assistant operations officer in the VIII Bomber Command. After the war ended, he remained in the United States Air Force Reserve until his retirement in 1968, having achieved the rank of colonel. He returned to showbiz after the war, and remained active in films and television until the 1970s. He was married to musical film star Jeanette MacDonald until her death in 1965, and was married to Nel Bentley Hees until she died in 1995. Gene Raymond lived until 1998.

Mary Astor is suitably effective as an out-of-place privileged woman dealing with the elements as well as the allure of a man much more rugged than her husband. Ms. Astor’s life and career would be particularly disorderly, including alcoholism, marriages, divorces, custody battles, and suicide attempts. She managed to move on from all of this, turn in some of the finest performances in cinema history (most notably in The Maltese Falcon in 1941), published five novels, a best selling autobiography, and a book on her screen work.

However, it is Jean Harlow who became the most important figure regarding Red Dust and not always for the best reasons. In Mollie Merrick’s syndicated newspaper column Hollywood in Person, she stated:

"Red Dust is really Clark Gable’s starring vehicle but the press of circumstances has stolen the spotlight from him and given it to Jean. Whether or not the interest and curiosity resultant from the tragedy will accrue popularity for the young player remains to be seen. She has never played a sympathetic part in motion pictures. Red Headed Woman is on of the heaviest vampire roles ever given a player, and Red Dust, so far as she is concerned, cannot help but be of the same type. Her future as a star will largely depend on change – that haphazard blowing of the winds of public opinion."

Jean Harlow, and MGM, had the same misgivings as to how the public would react to Red Dust. At a preview screening, Jean quietly attended in disguise, a hat, a turned-up collar, and dark glasses covering her identity, She quietly sat in the back of a crowded theater. She was relieved when her first appearance in the film resulted in a spontaneous applause from the crowd.

Harlow is remarkable in this film and steals every scene. She gets to show a great deal of range; a lot of her performance revolves around her wisecracks and provocative behavior, but her character has several more subtle moments as well. The hurt look on her face when Gable pays her and doesn’t give her a second glance before she leaves on the boat toward the beginning of the film speaks volumes. She has fantastic chemistry with Gable, but her relationship with Mary Astor’s character is also worth noting. They aren’t exactly rivals, despite the fact that they are in love with the same man, but Barbara is the example of the kind of woman of high class and education that Vantine never was nor never could be, and knowing that she could never be those things for Dennis is what frustrates her. She’s also very perceptive. She’s the person watching these proceedings and knows what’s going on between Dennis and Barbara when no one else notices.

It is surprising, even in the pre-code era, that the censors did not balk at the film’s themes of adultery, Harlow’s scene in a bathtub with Gable standing over her, and a passionate embrace between the two that has him pulling her hair and bending her over a table. But Red Dust was released with those things intact, some newspaper ads noting that the film was for sophisticated adults, and not recommended for children.

Striking while the iron was still hot, MGM once again cast Jean Harlow and Clark Gable together for their next film, "Hold Your Man." Both were happy to co-star again, and the steady worked helped Jean move on from the tragedy with Paul Bern.