A Canção do Deserto

I was seven years old when my mother took me to a theater in suburban Atlanta. The opening scene, lasting several minutes, was in Technicolor. It portrayed the Red Shadow with his brilliant scarlet robe flowing as he lead his band of "Riffs" on horseback through the rugged desert country. It was magnificent and unbelievable. In 1930, a movie in color was in the realm of science fiction. I've never forgotten the experience.

'Neath a desert moon, this famous operetta about a lovelorn woman from Paris and the infamous rebel, the Red Shadow, plays out amid the blowing desert sands and cool evening breezes. Not as cinematic as later musicals, this 1929 mega-hit is basically a filmed stage play and runs 2 hours. But the actors are very good and the film is a precious time capsule of 1920 musical theater.

John Boles, who also starred in the 1929 hit RIO RITA, here plays the infamous Red Shadow who is really Pierre, the meek son of General Birabeau. Margot (Carlotta King) has come to Morocco hoping for romantic adventure but is about to marry the dull Captain Fontaine (John Miljan). Margot likes Pierre but cannot abide his meekness. While she pines for adventure, she is also repulsed by the brutality of the Red Shadow.

There's a whole East vs West mentality here in notions about women, love, manliness, etc. Thrown into this stewpot is the exotic Azuri (Myrna Loy), a half-caste dancer forced to live as a "bad girl." She is the only one who knows the identity of the Red Shadow.

For comic relief we have the dowdy Susan (Louise Fazenda) and her silly (read gay) boyfriend Benny (Johnny Arthur) who also seem to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Boles, King, Loy, Fazenda, and Arthur are all excellent in their roles.

The 1943 and 1953 versions got progressively sanitized and streamlined, deleting the comic roles, all sexual innuendo, and several songs.

The original 1929 film had several color sequences (apparently lost) but exists in complete form.

Today's idea of "cool" just did not apply in 1929. It's not at all like a modern movie. It has title screens and actors using overly broad gestures and overacting in a nearly comical manner. They also sing in an artificial stylized semi-operatic manner. It combines the style of a silent movie with a stage production of an operetta. It is obviously from another age, but it only takes a few minutes before you accept the strange style and simply relax and enjoy it. The available DVD was obviously made from a print that came from barely salvageable deteriorating celluloid. The video quality is terrible and the sound quality is merely bad. In spite of all these problems, the movie is worth watching over and over. The comic scenes are amusing. The bad editing and overdrawn acting is mildly amusing, too. The music is fabulous and you soon relax and begin to love wallowing in the corn. The plot? Think of it as "Zorro goes to Morocco" and it was probably at least some of the inspiration for Superman (hero with a secret identity who wears a red cape, etc.). The 1953 version is more easily available, but much of the music and plot was gutted to try to make it a bit more "cool" in 1950's terms. Unfortunately, the sacrifices removed much of what made the original production work musically and emotionally. I prefer the older version and just wish there was a better print available. If you have any interest in classic operetta, this is a "do not miss" film. If you have no feeling for such music, you would probably find this a complete waste of time (and earn my sympathy for your inability to appreciate it).

It was the best of times, the worst of times(Dickens);"The Singing Fool" and the "Jazz Singer" rescued W.B. from bankruptcy but the advent of sound ruined actors who failed to make the transition:e.g. John Gilbert's squeaky voice. 1929 saw the great crash and the onset of Depression.It was also the time of Abd-El-Krim who fought the French in Morocco and may have been the inspiration of this operetta.

The titling looks so very much like a silent,plus the 10 min.intermission.The stiffness is forgivable,considering some facts: silent actors still had to declaim and gesture;synch.sound had to be filmed in booths,restricting movements(no blimps those days),and the camera crane and boom had only just arrived.

Carlotta King is in excellent voice,but has a distinct almost UK elocution resembling Margaret Dumont's.I still think that John Boles' acting as the R.S. is as passionate as one could wish, his portrayal as the inane Pierre overplayed until his father tells him of Margot's intended trip with Fontaine,when his disappointment is obvious.The music keeps to the imported Viennese style except the Riff Song and one or two others.The "Desert Song" duet is a delight and the difference with this film and other musicals is that the background music is there all the time and keeps the action going,not just dialog interspersed with a song or two.I think that their voices compensate for any acting deficiencies and the sincerity comes over very well.The two later versions do not match it in content, and given the choruses and dances the production values for the time are great.The original was partly in Technicolor,I am informed.I disagree about Benny's gaiety:the term was unknown in those days and would not have been implied.I saw this historic masterpiece in Brighton UK in '30,and wish there was a decent video.

The first of three versions of The Desert Song is this early talkie from Warner Brothers which outside of some desert outdoor shots is essentially a filmed stage play. That is valuable unto itself because it is a filmed record of a hit Broadway operetta of the time.

One of Sigmund Romberg's best musical scores with lyrics by Oscar Hammerstein, II and Otto Harbach is attached to one of the silliest of plots. But very popular for the time because the news of the Riff rebellion in Morocco was reported in American media and because Rudolph Valentino had made the Moslem inhabited desert quite the romantic place with The Sheik. As I said in two previous reviews of the other filmed Desert Songs, it's a salute to French colonialism.

The Desert Song finds John Boles as a kind of desert Zorro. The French occupiers know him as Pierre in his Clark Kent clumsy identity. But when he dons the red mask and cape he becomes the Red Shadow, leader of the Riff revolt. Boles to use the English expression has truly 'gone native'.

The fiancé of Captain John Miljan of the Foreign Legion, Carlotta King, is in from Paris and yearning for some real romance. Which Boles in his Red Shadow guise gives her in abundance. As Pierre she can't see him for beans.

In the meantime we have Myrna Loy as the desert siren Azuri who's getting dumped by Miljan, doesn't like it, and is working an agenda all her own.

Providing comic relief are Johnny Arthur and Louise Fazenda. Arthur came across as a kind of Eddie Cantor like milquetoast character who is the society columnist for his American newspaper who somehow was sent to cover the Riff Rebellion and doesn't like it at all. Arthur and Fazenda worked very well together.

Carlotta King did her one and only film with The Desert Song. She left the screen and lived to the ripe old age of 102. There has to be some kind of story there. She was in fine voice with a Jeanette MacDonald like quality. Jeanette incidentally was making her screen debut over at Paramount around the same time in The Love Parade.

Forget the silly plot and concentrate on the wonderful songs of Romberg- Harbach-Hammerstein and you can enjoy The Desert Song.