The Desert Song

I remember seeing this film in 1929 when I was 8 years old and how dramatic and thrilling it was. John Boles was a wonderful singer and actor who appeared in many great movies in the 30's.

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.

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).

Stiff early talkie in a bad print, but for students of both operetta and the transition to sound, it's invaluable. The 1926 stage success, with a stirring Romberg score set to lyrics by Hammerstein and Harbach, was filmed nearly intact, with choruses and reprises galore serving what now looks like the most ridiculous story an operetta ever served up. John Boles, overplaying the simp Pierre while under-emoting his secret alter ego, the Red Shadow, stands around and delivers the title song and "One Alone" a couple of times apiece, while his romantic counterpart, the stage soprano Carlotta King, sings well and manages some enthusiasm. This being as conventional as operetta gets, there's also a second comic couple, overacted by the extremely fey Johnny Arthur and Louise Fazenda, not having one of her better days. Myrna Loy, still playing "exotic" parts, is a hoot as Azuri, hootchie-kootching in dusky makeup and demanding, "Vere is Pierre?" A crowded chorus mostly stands around and sings, the staging's static, the orchestra's playing live somewhere offstage (under the circumstances, the recording's pretty impressive), some sequences are filmed silent and post-dubbed with music and sound effects, and the crude dramaturgy and far-fetched plotting cross over into camp by today's standards. But if you want to know what a 1926 stage operetta looked like, played like, and sounded like, this is as good a chance as you'll ever get.

... instead it is barely a footnote. That is mainly because Warner Brothers failed to recognize that this era in film history - 1928-1929 - was a special time and required them to dispense with their rigid film release schedule. The Desert Song was complete and ready for release in November 1928 - one of the if not the first Technicolor all sound musicals, a true innovation and marvel of the time. But instead it sat in its can until May 1929, its scheduled release date. By that time it was a museum piece as MGM's Broadway Melody, released in February 1929, won all of the accolades and the Best Picture Oscar.

And now for the production itself, adapted from the musical, and the truest adaptation of all of the filmed versions. The film begins with The Riffs, Arab soldiers, charging across the desert, and camping in a small canyon. And I mean very small considering the breadth of the desert. That is because once the Riffs dismount their horses they break into the rousing "Riff Song", and the limitations of early sound cinematography do not allow for wide shots. The leader, "The Red Shadow" (John Boles), is actually the French Pierre Bierbeau . He tells his story to two of the Riffs -and it is the longest narrative in the film - because still in the age of the title card, the alternative would be dozens of title cards!

Pierre speaks of how his love for Margot caused him to join the French army years before, sending him to Morocco. He was ordered by the cruel general in charge there to attack and destroy an Arab village. He saw the savagery of such an act and refused. The general, Margot's father, accused him of treason, slapped him so hard he fell, and demanded he resign. Pierre fled into the desert, asked the Riffs to follow him as the Red Shadow - his face always disguised so they would not know he was French - and then he returned to town acting as though his disgrace in the army turned him into a flower picking simpleton. This allows him to wander in and out of the French settlement, learn of the Army's plans, and then warn and lead the Riffs as a sort of Robin Hood, always unsuspected by his fellow Frenchmen. Complications have arisen as now Pierre's father is the general charged with the capture of the Red Shadow, dead or alive.

Carlotta King plays Margot. WB's wardrobe people are a curious lot. They either have her dressed as a seductress and singing to the troops in a cabaret, or dressed in a riding habit which makes her look quite frumpy. Margot is engaged to the slimy soldier Fontaine (John Miljan). Apparently Fontaine is planning to marry Margot for at least partially political reasons, because he is carrying on with the "half caste" Azuri (Myrna Loy). The title card tells you she is "half caste" (part European), because not even in the precode era would a romance between a European and an Arab be allowed in an American film. Azuri learns the true identity of the Red Shadow, but she is biding her time as to what she does with the information. Poor Myrna Loy. Being forced by WB into roles where she is always the vindictive vamp who cannot speak in complete sentences. No wonder she fled from there as soon as her contract allowed.

Humor is injected into the plot by Benny Kid (John Arthur), a timid reporter with rather effeminate qualities. He is being vigorously pursued by the rather ditzy blonde flirt Susan (Louise Fazenda). Louise Fazenda spent 1929 playing the voluptuous giggly flirty type, but then in 1930 she suddenly is portraying portly prudish matrons from that point forward! I don't know what happened here, particularly since she was married to Warner Brothers producer Hal Wallis.

How wil this all work out? I'll let you watch and find out, but good luck finding a copy. Until recently all I could find was the blurry copy that has been around for years, the only copy in existence, the black and white print found in Jack Warner's vault. It appears this film has been recently restored. Of all of the players here - three had notable film careers that made it past the early sound era. Of course there is Myrna Loy who had a great career over at MGM, there is Louise Fazenda who played comic supporting roles until she retired in 1939, and finally there is John Boles whose rich tenor voice made him a natural in the early musicals and whose film career was robust until the beginning of WWII. Boles was unusual in that he was married to the same woman for 52 years until his death in 1969.

Forgive this long review, but these early sound films and their eccentricities are one of my guilty pleasures.