The Desert Song

I grew up listening to Gordon MacRae sing The Desert Song on an album that also featured him in the musical Roberta. The soprano in both cases was Lucille Norman, and both recordings were wonderful. So it was with great interest that I watched "The Desert Song."

Having myself appeared in "The New Moon," I can tell you that on stage, these operettas only work if done tongue in cheek. If one were filming them for today's audiences, I suspect they would have to be done that way as well.

However, for beautiful music, "The Desert Song" is operetta at its best.

The story is not unfamiliar -- just think Superman or Zorro.

Shiek Yousseff (Raymond Massey) secretly plots to overthrow the French, all the while pretending to be their friend. Opposing him are the Riffs and their leader, El Khobar. El Khobar is in reality Professor Paul Bonnard who is making a study of the desert. The Riffs' attacks on supply trains keep the villages in food.

General Birabeau (Ray Collins) of the French Foreign Legion arrives to investigate, and his daughter Margot (Kathryn Grayson) accompanies him. He hires Bonnard to tutor her. Margot, meanwhile, has eyes for a Legionnaire captain, Claud Fontaine (Steve Cochran). El Khobar kidnaps Margot until he can convince her that Yousseff is not on the side of the French, but Yousseff's men attack the camp and take Margot prisoner.

This is different from the actual operetta, in which Birabeau has a son, not a daughter; his son, Pierre, is actually the Riff leader The Red Shadow. In the operetta, Margot is engaged to Claud Fontaine, but the Red Shadow is in love with her.

Gordon MacRae and Kathryn Grayson lend their beautiful voices to songs such as "The Desert Song," "One Alone," and "Romance." Grayson is not quite bubbly enough as the flirty Margot. I can't believe that with that size voice, she sang Butterfly on an opera stage, but I guess she did.

It's a pretty production, with Dick Wesson, playing a reporter, providing some comic relief. In the operetta he has a girlfriend, Susan.

This is the kind of movie where you enjoy the music and the singing. Well worth watching.

Gordon Macrae does look a lot like Superman and Clark Kent and in this film, he has a secret identity as a mild mannered professor as contrasted with his hero persona, El Khobar.

I must admit I was a collector of Batman, Superman, The Flash, Green Lantern and Silent Knight comics when I first saw this movie as a boy in knee pants. But even then, I knew a good song when I heard it. So well into adulthood when this movie was re-released, I made it a point to see it again. I have borrowed the video version twice and I plan to do so again. I simply can't let go of the melodies of The Desert Song and One Alone.

On Gordon MacRae, what can I say? It doesn't seem fair that one so handsome could also be the greatest singer on celluloid and besides, he is funny. Spoiler: Even my little sons who had no clue about Broadway musicals were in stitches when he pulled that stunt with the ethnic musical instrument that sounded like a cross between the bleating of an ass and a sheep.

Kathryn Grayson who strikes me as prim and proper with a seriously classical singing voice gamely plays the role of a flirt. I am sure if she didn't hit it very big in the movies, she would have been the resident soprano of a major opera theatre. She is always a treat to watch and listen to.

Following John Boles in 1929 and Dennis Morgan in 1943, Gordon MacRae gives this outdated hokum his best shot in the silly role of Paul Bonnard, sometimes a timid academic, sometimes an adventurer. He does get to sing some lovely songs though - it may be one of the most improbable musical plots, but 'The Desert Song' has one of the best scores of any musical.

Kathryn Grayson is on hand with her trademark soprano trill as female lead, while Steve Cochran and Raymond Massey enjoy themselves in the supporting cast. And there's some fabulous Technicolor. Recommended for musical fans who like to suspend belief and for those who have a long-term devotion to the lyrics of Oscar Hammerstein II.

Spritely, joyous, full of heroics, romance and beautiful music, beautifully performed by Gordon McCrae and Katherine Grayson, a truly lovely actress, "The Desert Song" is simply one of the finest musicals of the first half of the twentieth century, and this 1953 version, the third filming by this studio, is by far the best. From the "Drum, drum, drum of Hobart's in the sand," as the Riffs ride across the vast trackless desert at the beginning of the film, the music seems almost continuous. On of the few disappointments of the film is the haunting "Azuri's Song" from the original musical, but the quality of acting, with Ray Collins, Raymond Massey, Frank De Cordova and William Conrad, assure that the action never becomes dull. This is the way musicals should be filmed and the direction J. Bruce Humberstone, who cut his teeth on the first Charlie Chan movies of the thirties makes it all come together in a real treat. Sit back and enjoy as El Khobar and the Riffs go riding across your living room.

I'm afraid I must contradict one of the contributors above. El Khobar (The Red Shadow) was not based on Abd-el-Kader but instead on the exploits of one known as El Hadj Aleman, who gave the French Foreign Legion fits during the Riff War in the 1920's. El Hadj Aleman was in fact a Legion deserter (Otto Klems) of German nationality. Despite being a Legion officer, he hated the French, defecting to the Arabs and with his military skills became a very effective leader. His identity was a mystery to the Foreign Legion until nearly the end of the war. Surrendering, he was sentenced to death by the French, but he had become a romantic hero in the U.S. due to dispatches by American reporters (witness Romberg's operetta, The Desert Song, as a result). U.S. pressure was applied to the French and they at last quietly released Klems. Back in Germany and in prison for burglary, he committed suicide.

Just setting the record straight.