A pretty good movie. Red Dust is one of the films that made Clark Gable a star and it's easy to see why. In it, he plays the kind of likable rogue character that audiences would come to know him as. Gable is Dennis Carson, the operator of a rubber plantation in Indochina, who is all business until his world is turned upside down by two women. First Vantine Jefferson (Jean Harlow), a prostitute looking for a place to lie low arrives. Then a prospector and his wife, Barbara (Mary Astor), show up at the plantation. Both women are unwelcome intruders into Carson's world at first, but soon they each end up igniting his desire. Fooling around with the floozy Vantine is easy, but things get complicated when Carson's eye falls on the married Barbara. With his more than questionable actions, any other actor might have been completely unlikeable in the role, but Gable somehow pulls it off. Harlow and Astor also give very good performances. It helps that the heavy subject matter and brash duologue, adapted from a stage play, was not watered down too much for the screen version. Definitely a well made film worth seeing.
