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).
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hwadleigh22 July 2005
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Mullet8 August 1998I 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.
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bkoganbing30 April 2010The 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. -
After five years and viewing the two later versions, I think that this primordial effort in filmed operetta is far too severely criticized.I agree with all the observations by other IMDb critics, but there are particularly expansive film production values: good tenor and bass voices among the soloists and choruses,such as those of Sid El Kar and Ali Ben Ali,including the choral settings of "One Alone", "Eastern and Western Love," and let's not overlook Clementina and her ladies in "Castanette", "On the streets of Spain","There is a key.".etc.,and much else.Much would be very non-PC today. The writers have not overlooked comedy in the shapes of Johnny Arthur and Louize Fazenda as Bennie and Susan.Bennie's reaction after a bad experience with a horse is priceless.(see the film, I'm not telling you) It's funnier still when he is dressed in an overlong night shirt, and when Ali Ben Ali, the much turbaned,whiskered,ear-ringed,feathered tribal chief and he argue about Bennie's future. He is much funnier than the newspapermen in the later versions,Lynn Overman, and a later forgotten actor; while Ali Ben Ali's wide-eyed ogling with Clementina is quite farcical. I liked John Boles' rendering of "Then you will know",but in the whole contrast with later musicals (and really this is operetta with some sung dialog) Boles is much more dashing than many later singing heroes unless you include the energetic prancing in "Seven Brides for seven brothers". Louize Fazenda and Arthur make a very comic couple and are full of wisecracks: "Why do men marry their secretaries?" Susan (Fazenda)"Well, if you're going to let a man dictate to you,you might as well marry him" On the whole, this is a large scale,very musical and unusual operetta,full of choruses,combining "the desert magic",horses,exterior scenery, men in uniform,very much ahead of its time. But this very essence of romance has its serious moments;the characters,so different from the pasteboard casts of other works, are almost three-dimensional:they have pasts,presents,futures and personal philosophies. Thus Margot,asked by her fiancé why she wears riding habit quips: "I don't suppose you noticed there was a moon out tonight" Gen.Birabeau" See,Margot wants to be carried off by a shiek,as in the story books.." Margot:" I know that Frencnmen are only shieks to the women they don't intend to marry." In the serious episodes, the "Red Shadow's", Pierre's, tentative nervousness during her solo of the "Desert Song" is well portrayed; Captain Fontaine,the fiancé, gets down to business in "I MUST go,Margot"; finally,the epitome of drama shows,when informed by a legionnaire of the "signal fires",Fontaine points up his revolver,fulminating,"A challenge! This will be his last!" In sum, a great orchestration of exotic choreography,comedy,romance,betrayal,crisis and resolution which significantly outperforms its successors decades later.
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AlsExGal13 October 2018... 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. -
marcslope28 September 2015Stiff 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.
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overseer-318 September 2003I'm not sure how funny and campy this film was meant to be when it was filmed in 1929, but today, watching it in 2003, I thought this movie hysterical. I was laughing so hard, I cried. The gesticulations, the chorus scenes, the bits by Myrna Loy as a "half-caste" woman, the kiss scenes, the singing, all were incredibly funny. Even my kids were laughing, and my husband was doing a Red Shadow imitation and throwing his arms into the air singing.
There is something to be said for merriment, and so even though this film is technologically backward today it does deserve a higher mark than the current "4" I see here as the average.
I'm a big John Boles fan, but he was way too adorable here as The Red Shadow to be taken seriously, and honestly he looked uncomfortable before the cameras. He had a lovely singing voice too, which sadly wasn't preserved well by the recording technology of the time. Not sure how many early Technicolor sequences would have improved this film in its original format, but it would be nice if someone, sometime could restore it.
"Oh Pierre, you shouldn't have come!" :) -
richard-17875 March 2021The previous fourteen reviewers will tell you how corny many parts of this movie are - and I grew up listening to The Desert Song, so I'm no enemy of this sort of transplanted Viennese operetta. But even if you fast forward through most of this, you do need to see a scene late in the movie in which Myrna Loy, done out as Tondalaya before her time, reveals a great truth to the commander about his son. You could say that she sets a high standard for really over-the-top acting. (Remember: this is one of the very first talkies, and these actors are trying to come to terms with hidden microphones, etc.) But it is SO exaggerated, SO laughable. And so very, very racist. You can only guess how bad Ms. Loy, a fine actress, must have felt playing that scene and that role.
Nearer the end there is a bad love scene with the female lead talking over and over about "Pierre" in a high voice. I'm convinced that the creators of *Singing in the Rain* must have had that scene in mind as they were writing their hysterical send-up of early talkies, the scene in which the actress (Jean Hagan) has the microphone hidden in the bosom of her dress. -
Warner Bros. studios produced this first screen operetta, largely a filmed Sigmund Romberg stage operetta with some added outdoor scenes. Watching the film gives you a real sense of the times in which it was made, what audiences responded to, and how thrilling sound must have been in early "talkies." John Boles and Carlotta King earnestly trill their way through. Clips are readily available on YouTube. The movie was redone in 1953 with Kathryn Grayson and Gordon MacRae, and their romantic duet of the title song is beautifully filmed, demonstrating how far filmmaking had come in less than a quarter of a century. Both versions reflect the public's ongoing fascination with exotic portrayals of sheiks and all things Arab. --Musicals on the Silver Screen, American Library Association, 2013
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Kevin Clarke13 January 2008Okay, as a film this isn't the greatest achievement: it's static beyond belief. And I imagine back in 1929 it wasn't a huge success. But seen today, it allows us to witness a performance tradition that is lost. This "Desert Song" looks (and sounds) like a filmed stage performance of one of the most popular Broadway-operettas of the 1920s. All the melodramatic acting is there, the exaggerated comic stuff... and all the cross-gender jokes that would be politically incorrect today. (About Pierre being "like a sister" to Margot and Benny not being "a real man".) Put together, you can imagine how such a way of performing operetta worked on stage back then. And it's a shame no one does it like this any more - because the (homosexual) jokes (among others) are really funny. Also, you get to hear the entire score nearly intact, as played on Broadway. The singing isn't great throughout. But combined with the acting and good looks (especially of the Red Shadow) and combined with the phenomenal orchestra the music impresses. Hopefully someone will issue a soundtrack one day. And hopefully someone will release the film on commercial DVD, as a historic document of a great show done 'historically correct.' Compared with the later 'heroic' versions of "Desert Song" on film, this one is pure fun. And still touching at the same time. A mad romance in Marocco...
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In the 1954 biopic Deep In My Heart, audiences got to hear the beautiful music of composer Sigmund Romberg, including his operetta The Desert Song. It might have tempted some folks to watch a version of the operetta, and die hard movie buffs might have wanted to try the 1929 version. But hear my warning: you will not like it. You can appreciate the music and John Boles's beautiful voice, but you can't actually like it. Not only is the only version available in pretty poor condition (it's almost 100 years old after all), but it feels like a taped live performance during which all the actors are straining to reach the back row with every line. They don't always shout, mind you, but the delivery and facial expressions are extremely over-the-top. The production values are that of a silent movie, and the libretto is very stage-y (and understandably so).
If you do sit through it, it's because John Boles is your favorite actor of all time and you believe he can do no wrong, even as a Moroccan bandit. You love silent Arabian adventures, and your idea of a fun night out is to go to a Gilbert and Sullivan show or a campy melodrama where the pasted mustaches fall of the villain's faces halfway through Act One. Really, folks. You can watch the 1943 or 1953 versions that are a little more geared towards film audiences. -
drednm21 February 2016'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. -
mark.waltz6 January 2016Coming alive when the leading players, John Boles and Carlotta King, break into the title song, this comes off as a stagy and over-acted antique. The film reminds me a lot of some of the spoofing of the early sound era in "Singin' in the Rain" with some truly over-the-top 0performances. The Sigmund Romberg/Oscar Hammerstein score is retained in this adventurous musical that tells the take of the Red Shadow who is out to prevent his people from being conquered by European invaders.
A real curio as far as movie musical history is concerned, this is not aided by ineffectual leads and outlandish performances by the supporting cast which includes a silly Louise Fazenda and a rather hammy Myrna Loy as an Arab girl with a bad Spanish accent. While not impressed with the effeminate comedy of Johnny Arthur, I'll give him credit for not being the obnoxious annoyance of Dick Wesson on the film with Kathryn Grayson and Gordon MacRae. The funniest moment has Arthur told by Fazenda. "I can't have you running around in women's clothes. You'll be talked about!"
Having seen the 1953-remake and a 1934 short subject ("The Red Shadow") as well as the behind the scenes story on "Deep in My Heart"), I have been looking to the discovery of this version for years. What I found was a lavish on the outside, empty on the inside. What it contains in sand it lacks in comedy. Somewhat lavish but really just an over-stuffed bell pepper, this lacks real spark to make it a success -
swgreif-2519230 March 2022This is one of my favorite films. It's a shame no better copy of it has been found. Johny Arthur's effeminate, if not worse, routine would be banned under the 1934 Production Code. Shame. He certainly works in with funny Louise Fazenda (Hal Wallis's wife; "the Prisoner of Fazenda"!) All in all a great experience with Joih Boles and Carlotta King, whose wonderful voices make the blood race, and there's Myna Loy at her slinkiest, sexiest best.
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saustin23 October 2001It 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. -
JK-121 February 1999I 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.