Desert Nights

Hugh Roland (John Gilbert) manages an African diamond mine. He is told that Lord Stonehill and his daughter Diana are visiting the mine. It's been three years since any white woman has joined them. The father and daughter turn out to be two diamond thieves. They kidnap Hugh and escape into the desert. They are abandoned by their black servants. With no way to survive, they are forced to depend on Hugh.

Gilbert was a silent film star. He's not well known today. One could see the dashing leading man in him. The turns in the second half are a little weak in terms of action. I was expecting something more thrilling. It seems to be trying for comedy which it didn't start out with. It's still fine. It's just not I was expecting.

The great John Gilbert stars as manager of a diamond company in South Africa. He is kidnapped by a pair posing as English aristocrats (Mary Nolan, Ernest Torrence) after they steal $500,000 worth of diamonds.

They head into the dessert and quickly get lost. Their accomplices soon perish after drinking from a poisoned water hole (poisoned by Torrence himself). Gilbert is tied up in a wagon pulled by oxen, but the power soon shifts as they get hopelessly lost and the water is used up. Gilbert is freed and gets the upper hand.

Terrific little action film with great bits of comedy, and the three stars are solid.

Gilbert's last starring silent film. He looks great and has great fun as the man who hasn't seen a white woman in 3 years. Nolan is beautiful, and Torrence has one of his best roles as the villain.

Gilbert had begged MGM to make this as a talkie but LB Mayer refused. Too bad. This might have been a real classic and a solid success for Gilbert in the new medium. Rather, they stuck him in a sappy romance, HIS GLORIOUS NIGHT, and he flopped. It was all downhill for John Gilbert after that. MGM's stupidity was cinema's great loss. John Gilbert was a great star and should have had a great career in the 30s.

John Gilbert's charisma is evident here as the manager of a diamond mine in Capetown, South Africa, forced to accompany the five diamond thieves into the desert to prevent him from "squealing." Among the thieves are Ernest Torrence and Mary Nolan, who gained admittance to the mine in the first place by pretending to be the expected Lord Stonehill and Lady Diana. Although the acting was uniformly good, I found there were too many plot holes that distracted me and made me dislike the film ultimately. I did enjoy seeing the beautiful Mary Nolan, an actress I was not familiar with.

I was also bothered by the abbreviated print shown on the Turner Classic Movies channel, which ran only 62 minutes. The copyright length of the film indicated the film should have run 80 minutes at the sound speed. A cut was obvious at one point where Torrence suddenly acquired a gun, whereas Gilbert had the upper hand in the previous scene. Perhaps this is the only print available these days.

Desert Nights (1929)

*** (out of 4)

John Gilbert's final silent picture is a pretty interesting one even if its reputation isn't that high. In the film he plays Hugh Rand, a diamond mine owner in South Africa. One day a father (Ernest Torrence) and daughter (Mary Nolan) show up on invitation for some good hunting but it turns out they're a pair of thieves who take Hugh hostage as well as steal $500,000 in diamonds. The three head off into the desert for their escape but soon they're out of water and not sure which way to go so the thieves must depend on Hugh to save their lives. Watching this film there's no doubt that it was rushed together just to save time before MGM had to put Gilbert into a sound feature. I'm really not sure why they selected this one to remain silent as the material could have made for an interesting early talkie but I must say it's a good thing that they kept it silent. The movie runs an extremely quick 62-minutes and for the most part is very entertaining. The reason I say it works best as a silent is because of the hot sexuality throughout the film between Gilbert and Nolan. The two of them certainly heat up the screen and this is apparent early on in a simple dinner sequence where the two begin to get to know one another. Just the way they look at one another just tells you all the sexual undertones you'll need to know. Once the film moves out to the desert it picks up the entertainment as it's clear Gilbert's character is just having fun tormenting the two thieves by constantly reminding them that death is near. I really loved the way Gilbert played the role in a sort of madness that his character finally breaks through and decides to have some fun with the people who kidnapped him. The way he torments the "Father" by coming onto the girl was a lot of fun and just added to the sexual tension running through the film. Gilbert is a lot of fun in the role as he gets to play that tough guy everyone loved him as and I'm sure the women really ate up seeing him burning in that hot sun. Torrence is a real blast as the bad guy as he eats up every scene he's in and you can't help but love to hate him. He's such a arrogant jerk at the start of the film so it's fun seeing him tortured by Gilbert. Nolan is incredibly beautiful in her role and this includes a great sequence with her bathing naked. We don't actually see anything but the implications of the scene are easy to see. Her and Gilbert really burn up the screen and make it worth sitting through. In many ways this film reminds me of a silly serial that has just about everything happening. This film offers up some nice tension but there's also plenty of sexuality, comedy and even camp value especially the scene with the machine gun tied on the side of a car. Fans of silent cinema will really eat this thing up but even those who aren't fans will probably find themselves having fun.

John Gilbert DIDN'T exit pictures because of a high voice. In fact, his voice was a gravelly baritone; not mellifluously romantic, but perfectly suited to the characters he played in his later sound films. It's too bad this was released as a silent.

This pre-code desert adventure film features solid performances by the leads (I always perk up when I see Ernest Torrance in the cast list), beautiful photography, and a plot full of tension from shifting power and sexual tension.

Gilbert plays a bad good guy-- roguish, gritty, full of dark humor, and willing to play his captors off each other with anything it takes for his survival. One reviewer compares him to Errol Flynn. I can see that, but also the Clark Gable of "Red Dust".

A good, suspenseful film with all the advantages of the late silent period.