Le désert rouge

It's a different kind of western, with little action, all right, but it has a good plot and excellent performances, especially from the veterans William Farnum (Cash) and J. Farrel MacDonald (Jeff). Their interpretation of two friends turned into enemies because of a baby boy they found in the desert is wonderful. Helen Twelvetrees (Mary Ellen) is a flesh and blood Betty Boop and shows with her faces the transition from silent film heroines to those of the sound era. The plot has a simple, but coherent structure that leads to a happy ending. In the whole, "The Painted Desert" has not much of action but it's an enjoyable western movie to watch.

The only thing I can say after watching this movie is that I saw some history. This movie is over 90-years-old as of today and it looked it. The picture quality and the sound were a tad above awful and the acting was not far behind. Cinematic issues aside, this movie had a very simplistic plot and I still had a hard time following it. It was too hard to make out the faces to know who was who and who did what.

Two traveling companions, Cash Holbrook (William Boyd) and Jeff Cameron (J. Farrell MacDonald), found an abandoned baby boy. What do you think their next course of action was? If you said locate a family for him then you're wrong. They got into a lifelong feud over the boy. They split right then and there over who should raise the boy and Cash Holbrook was the victor in that respect. He raised him and named him Bill Holbrook (William Boyd).

Years later, when Bill was an adult, we got to see what became of Bill and the two men. Cash was the wealthy owner of a cattle company while Jeff was a struggling rancher who owned the rights to a local watering hole. Jeff's watering hole was the only thing Cash wanted of his.

Bill would eventually split from his father and go work for Jeff. Actually, Cash kicked his adopted son out of the house which prompted Bill to go work for Jeff. Why was Bill run off by his pa? Bill had the audacity to suggest that Cash work with Jeff to help mine some tungsten on Jeff's land. For such a blasphemous suggestion Cash ran off his beloved adopted son.

Would Jeff and Cash ever become friends again? Would Bill ever reunite with his adoptive father? It wasn't very compelling stuff, but what else were you going to watch in 1931?

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The Painted Desert is a less than average western in which Clark Gable made his first film with any billing. Previously he had been a bit player in several silent features, but this his first role of any substance. It's the only reason The Painted Desert has any significance in Hollywood history.

Made for Pathe Pictures just before they merged with RKO, The Painted Desert is the story of two old desert rats, William Farnum and J. Farrell MacDonald who find an infant alive in a covered wagon on the desert.

For reasons I don't understand, a disagreement about whether to lay claim to a waterhole or to push on further and find enough land for a cattle ranch turns these friends into blood enemies. Farnum takes the infant and raises him as his own.

The infant grows up to be William Boyd in his pre-Hopalong Cassidy days and he becomes a mining engineer and discovers tungsten ore on the MacDonald property. He also takes a shine to MacDonald's daughter Helen Twelvetrees. Also in the race for her hand is Clark Gable.

Gable's performance as the roughneck rival to Boyd caught some attention at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and he became within a year, the studio's biggest star ever in its existence.

Possibly due to bad editing, possibly to bad writing, but The Painted Desert is far from the greatest western I've ever seen. But it yielded something far more valuable than tungsten.

The star of this film is William Boyd, who made a bunch of westerns for Pathe in his time. As a matter of fact, on the opening credits,Clark Gable isn't even listed. Later, when they name the entire cast he is mentioned, but he comes way behind top rated Boyd and even now largely forgotten Helen Twelvetrees.

Two pioneers, Cash Holbrook and Jeff Cameron, are trekking across the desert when they find a deserted encampment with one survivor, a baby boy. The two fight over where to go next. Jeff Cameron wants to stay at the waterhole because "it is a grub stake" - all people driving cattle through will need this waterhole. Cash Holbrook wants to continue on to grazing land so he can raise cattle. He calls Jeff stubborn, and takes the baby too, daring Jeff to shoot because if he does, the baby will fall from Cash's arms and break his neck.

About twenty years pass and Cash has become a wealthy cattleman. Not being ambitious in the old west has cost Jeff. He married, but his wife died in this harsh environment, and all he has left is his daughter, Mary Ellen (Helen Twelvetrees). In all of this time Cash and Jeff have agitated one another - Jeff is still angry at Cash for stealing the baby boy that is now a man, refusing to let Cash's herd use his watering hold for any price and makes him go 27 miles around. One night it is coming to a showdown. Cash is going to stampede his cattle to Jeff's watering hole and show him who is boss. Jeff and his daughter are prepared to shoot it out to stop him. Along comes a stranger - Gable as Rance Brent, and with him instantly taken with Mary Ellen, Rance decides to back them up in the shootout.

Cash's adopted son comes out and stampedes the cattle away from the watering hole to prevent the deadly shootout. Cash is angry, and throws Bill (Bill Boyd) out. Bill went to mining school, discovers tungsten on Jeff's land, and enters into a mining partnership with his dad's sworn enemy.

Now this is where the movie is weird. Bill is acting Gandhi-like saying that he takes neither side, he just wants Cash and Jeff to be friends again and that neither is bad or wrong. I beg to disagree, because to me Cash IS a bad man up to this point. First he uses Bill the infant as a human shield, and when Bill keeps something from escalating into bloodshed, Cash throws that son out of his life.

In the meantime, Jeff and Bill's mine is yielding lots of ore, and out of nowhere - certainly not out of any dialogue that I could perceive - Bill and Mary Ellen are in love. Meanwhile somebody is sniping at the drivers who are taking the ore into town to the railroad, and then some dynamite disappears and the mine is blown to smithereens. Everybody on Jeff's place blames Cash, and it is up to Bill to stop another potential showdown and shootout. I'll let you watch and find out what happens.

This film has absolutely no background music, which was common in early films, and much of the dialogue is very pedestrian. However, it is a good chance to see Gable in his first sound film, and although he hardly utters a word, you can see the beginning of "that Gable style".

Two long time friends find a baby boy left behind within an abandoned camp in old Arizona, and their conflict over who should take charge of the infant quickly lowers their relationship to the freezing point, where it remains for over 20 years although they are neighbouring ranchers, and the grown youth's attempt to bring about a reconciliation forms the heart of this interesting early western. William Boyd, later renowned as Hopalong Cassidy, is featured as the young man, Bill, raised by Cash Holbrook (William Farnum), with J. Farrell MacDonald as Jeff Cameron, the other of the feuding pair, and when Bill, a mining engineer, discovers a valuable lode of tungsten ore on Cameron's land, he forthwith fosters a mining project which he believes will be putting an end to the longstanding conflict. Actually filmed in Arizona's scenic Painted Desert region, the work is efficiently directed by Howard Higgin, who is abetted by the fine camerawork of Edward Snyder, with excellent sets arranged by Carroll Clark, and the cast generally performs well, a strong performance being given by Clark Gable as a completely unrepentant villain, only the tasteless characterization by Helen Twelvetrees as Cameron's daughter tainting the production.