Les nuits du désert

Of all the major American studios, MGM was the slowest to switch from silents to talking pictures. The studio head, Louis B. Mayer, insisted that talkies were just a fad...and so they continued making silent films up through 1929. Other studios had pretty much gone all talking by 1929. One of the later silents, and John Gilbert's last silent, was this dandy film "Desert Nights".

The film is set somewhere in Southern Africa. You aren't sure of the country but you know that the Kalahari Desert is in the region. This desert plays an important part because the boss of a diamond mine, Hugh Rand (Gilbert) is kidnapped and a fortune in diamonds is stolen by some clever crooks. However, Rand turns out to be the clever one as he ends up taking the crooks for a strange adventure.

There really wasn't anything I didn't like about the film. Gilbert is good, as always and the film is well written and exciting. Additionally, the end if smart and works well. Surprisingly, I don't think this film was ever re-made as a talking picture and with such an interesting plot, it should have been.

Desert Nights (1929)

*** (out of 4)

John Gilbert's final silent picture is a pretty interesting one even if its reputation isn't that high. In the film he plays Hugh Rand, a diamond mine owner in South Africa. One day a father (Ernest Torrence) and daughter (Mary Nolan) show up on invitation for some good hunting but it turns out they're a pair of thieves who take Hugh hostage as well as steal $500,000 in diamonds. The three head off into the desert for their escape but soon they're out of water and not sure which way to go so the thieves must depend on Hugh to save their lives. Watching this film there's no doubt that it was rushed together just to save time before MGM had to put Gilbert into a sound feature. I'm really not sure why they selected this one to remain silent as the material could have made for an interesting early talkie but I must say it's a good thing that they kept it silent. The movie runs an extremely quick 62-minutes and for the most part is very entertaining. The reason I say it works best as a silent is because of the hot sexuality throughout the film between Gilbert and Nolan. The two of them certainly heat up the screen and this is apparent early on in a simple dinner sequence where the two begin to get to know one another. Just the way they look at one another just tells you all the sexual undertones you'll need to know. Once the film moves out to the desert it picks up the entertainment as it's clear Gilbert's character is just having fun tormenting the two thieves by constantly reminding them that death is near. I really loved the way Gilbert played the role in a sort of madness that his character finally breaks through and decides to have some fun with the people who kidnapped him. The way he torments the "Father" by coming onto the girl was a lot of fun and just added to the sexual tension running through the film. Gilbert is a lot of fun in the role as he gets to play that tough guy everyone loved him as and I'm sure the women really ate up seeing him burning in that hot sun. Torrence is a real blast as the bad guy as he eats up every scene he's in and you can't help but love to hate him. He's such a arrogant jerk at the start of the film so it's fun seeing him tortured by Gilbert. Nolan is incredibly beautiful in her role and this includes a great sequence with her bathing naked. We don't actually see anything but the implications of the scene are easy to see. Her and Gilbert really burn up the screen and make it worth sitting through. In many ways this film reminds me of a silly serial that has just about everything happening. This film offers up some nice tension but there's also plenty of sexuality, comedy and even camp value especially the scene with the machine gun tied on the side of a car. Fans of silent cinema will really eat this thing up but even those who aren't fans will probably find themselves having fun.

The great John Gilbert stars as manager of a diamond company in South Africa. He is kidnapped by a pair posing as English aristocrats (Mary Nolan, Ernest Torrence) after they steal $500,000 worth of diamonds.

They head into the dessert and quickly get lost. Their accomplices soon perish after drinking from a poisoned water hole (poisoned by Torrence himself). Gilbert is tied up in a wagon pulled by oxen, but the power soon shifts as they get hopelessly lost and the water is used up. Gilbert is freed and gets the upper hand.

Terrific little action film with great bits of comedy, and the three stars are solid.

Gilbert's last starring silent film. He looks great and has great fun as the man who hasn't seen a white woman in 3 years. Nolan is beautiful, and Torrence has one of his best roles as the villain.

Gilbert had begged MGM to make this as a talkie but LB Mayer refused. Too bad. This might have been a real classic and a solid success for Gilbert in the new medium. Rather, they stuck him in a sappy romance, HIS GLORIOUS NIGHT, and he flopped. It was all downhill for John Gilbert after that. MGM's stupidity was cinema's great loss. John Gilbert was a great star and should have had a great career in the 30s.

Kidnapped by jewel thieves, the manager of a British diamond mining operation in Africa spends long DESERT NIGHTS plotting his escape...

John Gilbert is most enjoyable in this lively yarn, his last starring performance in a silent film (he would appear in the William Haines' picture A MAN'S MAN, which was released a few months after DESERT NIGHTS, but that was in a cameo role as himself). His verve & vitality propel the (sometimes silly) plot and make the movie into a very enjoyable action picture.

Ernest Torrence - in a fine portrayal - makes a florid, hammy villain. Beautiful Mary Nolan enacts the sort of woman any red-blooded male viewer would gladly walk the Kalahari to gain.

By 1929 silent films were truly an art form in their own right. (Witness the piano sequence early in the picture, with Gilbert & Nolan waltzing on the porch, to see the kind of nuance possible in this not-so-silent medium.) MGM was at the apex of the industry & Jack Gilbert was the Studio's greatest male star. Which is what makes DESERT NIGHTS so poignant. Before the year ended silent cinema, that most emotionally penetrating of all the photo dramas, would be dead & Gilbert's career would be dying. A new crop of stars would be on the rise & Noise would be king.

John Gilbert DIDN'T exit pictures because of a high voice. In fact, his voice was a gravelly baritone; not mellifluously romantic, but perfectly suited to the characters he played in his later sound films. It's too bad this was released as a silent.

This pre-code desert adventure film features solid performances by the leads (I always perk up when I see Ernest Torrance in the cast list), beautiful photography, and a plot full of tension from shifting power and sexual tension.

Gilbert plays a bad good guy-- roguish, gritty, full of dark humor, and willing to play his captors off each other with anything it takes for his survival. One reviewer compares him to Errol Flynn. I can see that, but also the Clark Gable of "Red Dust".

A good, suspenseful film with all the advantages of the late silent period.