Dennis Carson, a rubber plantation manager in Indochina, finds his orderly life disrupted by two very different women — and by his own feelings.
In Red Dust (1932), Clark Gable plays Dennis Carson, who runs a rubber plantation in French Indochina. When a surveyor arrives with his new wife, and a brash woman named Vantine, played by Jean Harlow, also arrives at the plantation, Carson’s life becomes a tangle of attraction, jealousy and loyalty. The film was made before the stricter enforcement of Hollywood’s Production Code, and its frankness about desire was part of its appeal.
Gable is perfectly at home as Carson: tough, good-humoured and unpretentious. His chemistry with Harlow, who would become one of his most famous co-stars, is relaxed and playful, and it helped establish the screen persona that would carry him through the decade.
Red Dust was later remade as Mogambo, again with Gable, but the original remains a vivid example of early 1930s Hollywood: exotic, romantic and anchored by a star who already seemed completely at ease.