ShangLuda Admirable film.

Voxitype Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Kaelan Mccaffrey Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

classicsoncall Considering the release of this film on the early threshold of the talkie film era, and with the hindsight of a couple hundred Western films under my belt, I was rather surprised by the originality of some of the scenes presented here. The opening sequence almost suggests that it IS a silent film, until broken by the cry of an abandoned baby in a covered wagon, discovered by a pair of codgers named Cash Holbrook and Jeff Cameron (William Farnum and J. Farrell MacDonald). At odds over who'll bring him up, Cash takes the baby and heads West with 'Bill'.Fast forward some twenty years, the baby has grown into Bill Boyd, or at least his character, Bill Holbrook. At the time of the movie, Boyd at age thirty six looks somewhat heavier around the middle than he would as his alter ego, Hopalong Cassidy. Bill attempts to get the former friends to reconcile their disagreement that has grown increasingly bitter over the years. When Bill discovers tungsten ore on Cameron's property, he throws in with the Cameron's to develop a mining operation and get closer to Miss Mary Ellen (Helen Twelvetrees).Most self references to "The Painted Desert" use the opportunity to promote the movie as the first speaking role for Clark Gable. The actor acquits himself reasonably well, though he's given the task of being a no good slimy polecat who attempts to further undermine the relationship of the former partners, and derail the budding romance between Bill and Mary Ellen. You can tell his acting is a bit forced, especially in the final confrontation with Bill when he outs himself.As others have mentioned, the lack of typical Western style action is apparent, but what makes the film difficult for a lot of viewers is that every... spoken... word... and... sentence... is... followed... by... a... pause... that's... so... looooong. With normal dialog, the film probably could have clocked in at under an hour. To my mind though, the final scene presenting the showdown between the senior Holbrook and Cameron is entirely original and one I've never seen before. Realistic too, in that handguns of the era depicted were never accurate beyond a distance of about twenty five feet. I won't spoil it for you, though Bill Boyd figures in the outcome. Let's just say he'll be a little late for his wedding.

MartinHafer Even though this movie marks the first speaking role for Clark Gable, it is a completely forgettable B-movie. Despite Gable's being in a purely supporting role, this is in fact a film starring the future mega-star of Saturday morning kiddie Western, Hopalong Cassidy. Cassidy, in fact, is the brightest aspect of this film, as his acting is passable. As for the rest, the acting and action is strictly "poverty row" quality--i.e., it is obviously the production of a 3rd rate studio. While this does not make it unwatchable, it is about what you'd expect for one of these quickie movies. Several of the actors stumble over their lines badly and the movie just seems rushed though production. To make matters worse, the video from "Hollywood Classics" is about the worst quality video I've seen. I only forced myself to sit through it because I am a big Gable fan--and that's about the audience I'd recommend watch this film.

Jack Tillmany The Painted Desert was one of the last features to be produced by Pathé in 1930 before being taken over by RKO, and one of the first to be released by the emerging RKO-Pathé Distributing Corporation. After its initial release it was put back on the shelf, supposedly never to be seen again. During this time four key action sequences were removed to be used as stock footage in later RKO films, among them the 1938 re-make also titled The Painted Desert. In 1955 the RKO library was sold to C&C Television Corporation for TV syndication, primarily on CBS affiliated stations, and both versions of The Painted Desert were in the package. 35MM source material for these 16mm television prints was missing all of the deleted footage, so that what remained, and all that viewers have been able to see for the last fifty years, was a lot of talk, and practically no action. The sequences which are missing are most of the cattle stampede at the beginning of the film, a wagon hi-jacking and subsequent stampede into the canyon mid-way into the film, an attempted, but unsuccessful wagon hi-jacking soon afterwards, and the big mine explosion and resultant landslide that destroys the mining camp further on. (Two very impressive shots from this last sequence can be found in Republic's Red River Valley (1936).) Frustratingly, the results of these events are shown, and much talked about, but the events themselves are nowhere to be seen. The version shown on Turner Classic Movies, though of superior visual quality, having been derived from the surviving original 35MM material, is still missing these key sequences, though no mention is made of it on the air.Even with what must have been some well executed and nicely photographed action sequences, The Painted Desert would still suffer from many of the same problems that make it so hard to take today, only less so. The direction by Howard Higgin is of the burdensome, slow moving style that typifies so many early sound films, best and most often described as "creaky." But William (billed as Bill) Boyd displays all the positive and natural characteristics that made him popular with audiences five years later as Hopalong Cassidy. We hear too often about the handful of silent players who did not make the transition into sound; Boyd was one of the greater number who did. As for Gable, in his first speaking role, it's all there. When he's on the screen, you know you've got something, and, as they say, the rest was history. Helen Twelvetrees was a competent actress who found her niche in big city melodramas, often as the victim of her environment, or the bad, bad people inhabiting it. She suffered a lot, but she suffered well. The only conceivable reason why she was so badly mis-cast in this film must have been that she was under contract to Pathé, and owed them a picture, or was being punished for not playing ball with the front office, or something like that. Charles Sellon as a tipsy miner is just plain tiresome. Farnum and MacDonald give just exactly what we've learned to expect from them, on target performances of the old school.Under ordinary circumstances, such a film would be of little value today, and probably rarely, if ever shown. But The Painted Desert is Clark Gable's first prominent role, and his first sound film, granting it a permanent place in film history, as well as an object of interest. Copyrighted by the soon-to-be-defunct Pathé Exchange in January 1931, this film fell into public domain when the copyright was not renewed in 1958, and during the ensuing years has become a staple of videotape distributors who specialize in titles over which there are no longer any legal restrictions, but which have some modicum of popular appeal. Promoting Clark Gable's presence, usually with latter day publicity photos in which he appears older, and hence, the film younger, a lot of usually inferior copies of the truncated version have found their way into a lot of videotape collections and/or thrift shops. It would be nice to think that the film might be restored to its original length by re-inserting the missing sequences, if and when they could be identified and found, but this is highly unlikely. If a complete, original print could be located somewhere, at least Turner Classic Movies could be alerted to upgrade their version; in the meantime, at least an awareness of what we've got, and what's missing, might make The Painted Desert a little more tolerable for Clark Gable completests if no one else.

zeppo-2 For a western, this is somewhat unusual in that there is almost no action. The wagons been destroyed all happens off-camera and the mine explosion has all the thrills of a bouncy castle. The climatic clash between hero and villain is just one quick punch in the face. Nobody gets hurts and the feel is of a Saturday morning cartoon from the 1970's, where no one was allowed to use any violent action of any type.It's evident that Gable was going to make it and Boyd's role is just a precursor of his Hopalong Cassidy films.Alright for it's time but the non-action,stilted dialogue, stiff acting and long pauses all make for a dull film that seems to go on far longer than it's short 79 minute running time.