Red Dust Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.0
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.5
Overall		4.0

Red Dust Blu-ray Movie Review

Rubber, necking.

Reviewed by Randy Miller III January 27, 2026

Victor Fleming's Red Dust is a pre-Code romantic drama with real star power, boasting early top-billed roles for both Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, who would only live for five more years. Taken on its own terms, it's light on story but big on atmosphere, letting its stars work their magic in an exotic location while it gradually builds to an unpredicable finish. Remade by John Ford just over 20 years later as Mogambo (also starring Clark Gable, with its own fully restored Blu-ray due out next month from Warner Archive), it'll be of great interest to fans of its cast and director Fleming, who would lend his talents to both The Wizard of Oz and Gone With the Wind later that decade.

Red Dust unfolds at a rubber plantation in French Indochina with rugged Dennis "Denny" Carson (Gable) serving as its supervisor. Overseeing the Chinese laborers and doubling as the in-house doctor, he's usually careful about guests and is thus surprised to run into Vantine Jefferson (Harlow), a prostitute on the run from authorities in Saigon. Denny isn't amused with her flippant attitude yet soon falls for the "cute little trick"... but then things get awfully crowded with the arrival of engineer Gary Willis (Gene Raymond) and his lovely wife Barbara Willis (Mary Astor). Denny immediately falls for the married woman and immediately pushes Vantine to the side, instead focusing on winning Barbara's favor while her husband recovers from a near-deadly illness. Add in Denny's routine drunkenness, unsteady labor relations with the locals, and the bumbling exploits of his second-in-command Guidon (Donald Crisp), who also shares a love for liquor, and you've got yourself a recipe for several weeks of emotional tension and melodrama.

The narrative tone of Red Dust seems to match that of its characters... or is it the other way around? Interactions are playful enough at first: Denny trades jabs with Vantine (which later build to hostility) while making passes at married Barbara, who doesn't reciprocate his feelings until weeks later during a heavy rainstorm. Once husband Gary awakens from his slumber, everything is different. Denny assigns Gary to a "men only" job in a rugged, undeveloped area of the plantation, keeping him busy while continuing his pursuit. And while milquetoast Gary's love for Barbara finally makes Denny realize what an ass he's been, he plans to end the lopsided love triangle without spilling all the beans.

While his ultimate resolution doesn't hold up to scrutiny, Red Dust closes where it ought to -- this is a film that gets by on charm and charisma, not story. So it's no surprise that the collective strengths of its cast, sex appeal, and unusual locale are what likely excited audiences back in 1932 and helped Red Dust maintain staying power for several decades, especially since it was at or near a crucial turning point in the careers of its late, great stars. This is also a film that, like countless others from its era, plays rough in its treatment of women and minorities, so audiences will have to adjust accordingly and not judge it by modern standards. But just it did back then, this saucy pre-Code picture should prove appealing to fans of its cast and Warner Archive's Blu-ray revitalizes it from top to bottom: along with a lossless audio and a few choice bonus features, their lovingly remastered 1080p transfer is a thing of beauty.

Red Dust Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Since Red Dust's original nitrate camera negative is long gone (possibly lost before the tragic 1978 George Eastman House fire, according to a recent The Extras podcast), it was luckily part of MGM's nitrate-to-safety program that began at least a decade before. This best-available element was the source material for Warner Archive's new 1080p transfer, which was scanned in 4K and treated to a very careful round of manual cleanup; given the film's ample grain structure and multiple scenes with heavy rain, this was likely one of their more challenging restorations. As evidenced by these direct-from-disc screenshots, they've done a beautiful job indeed and once again delivered a purist-friendly picture that looks very true to its roots under the circumstances. Black levels occasionally pulse, noise competes with native grain levels, and unfixable damage can be seen on occasion, but this are all almost entirely forgivable; in face, as a whole it's well above expectations for a film quickly approaching the century mark. As usual, disc encoding is very good as the film gets almost an entire dual-layered disc to itself, tying everything together as neatly as possible.

Red Dust Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

As expected given Red Dust's age and secondary source material, this split-channel DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio track can't be described as "crystal clear" but, again, it's extremely good under the circumstances. Dialogue is consistently understandable -- save for the broken English of a few supporting characters, including Willie Fung's lovably "Hoy" -- but the optional English (SDH) subtitles may still be of some use here. Given the source limitations, it's a satisfying effort whose modest dynamic range and fidelity get the job done as well as possible.

Red Dust Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

This one-disc release ships in a keepcase with vintage poster-themed cover art and a trio of era-specific extras.

• Over the Counter (17:39) - This 1932 two-strip Technicolor short is fun its own right as a madcap department store comedy, but it's also notable for an uncredited cameo appearance by future leading lady Betty Grable; as described by IMDb, she dutifully plays "Customer Who Wants to Buy a Baby".

• Wild People (17:17) - Another 1932 two-strip, this short is laughably offensive in its portrayal of aborigines from Dutch New Guinea, who basically portray people from the Stone Age.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:12) - This fascinating promotional piece includes alternate scenes not seen during the film and, combined with its rarity as the only surviving trailer for it, makes this a special item indeed. The only catch? There's Spanish on-screen text paired with the English audio and the music's audio quality is quite rough.

Red Dust Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Victor Fleming's Red Dust is an early standout for the director as well as stars Clark Gable and Jean Harlow, who play two-thirds of a lopsided love triangle stuck in the middle of nowhere. The film's pre-Code sex appeal -- bolstered by the charisma of its stars, who are flanked by Mary Astor and Gene Raymond -- is a big reason why it scored with audiences and continues to endure, as Red Dust is still entertaining almost a century after its theatrical debut. Warner Archive's great restoration gives it new life on Blu-ray, revitalizing the film's appealing visuals while pairing them with lossless audio and a few choice extras. It's Highly Recommended to fans, and newcomers are welcome too.