Red Dust (1932)

if you could tolerate sexism and racism without taking them into account too seriously, you might emancipate yourself to indulge in the gable-harlow "red dust"....the mode of gable-harlow screen romances would be that the slicitous harlow desperately courts the handsome but crude gable who disregards this aphrodite-like blonde bombshell but enamoured of the other brunette upper-class prim fairlady who seems to have a crush on him that helps to uplevel his selfism. such pattern also repeats in "china seas", but only this time our stingently coy brunette mary astor has some depth by her delicately tormented conflict of adulterous passion and virtuous guilt. (as gable's typical brunette love interest, astor distinguishes herself with such mental complexity much more than rosalind russell in "china seas") gable always dismisses harlow by shutting at her rudely meanwhile has no objection to acquiant himself with her bedside curtain.(which means he disrepects her but sex with her anyway) however, the intensely lovelorn harlow would always endure his musculine vulgarities (which he makes no attempt to conceal from her) like a good little woman with her own bawdy prole demeanors such as uttering obscenely humorous quib lines. male audience then had an affinity with gable's character that might be due to their own sense of priviledged gender concepts beautified by gable's dashing good looks and his redundancy of female admirers but also identified with his savage roughness and his abusive manners. he has the vices american audience's fond of and also the shrewd manliness approved by men in general that makes him the so called "diamond in the raw" which is the good-looking sexy beast who takes what he wants egoistically like men assume themselves to be. he proves his competence of male charm by successfully seducing the genteel wife but toss her aside once he finally yields to the bourgeois concern of nobility. he loves and runs, eventually even rewarded with a glamour beauty as compensation. additionally, the way those characters treat asian coolies is a vital proof of racism then...when astor gives a line like "how could you treat my husband like one of those coolies" or implicitly deeming them as "animals" or "civilized barbarians" constantly with a goofy smirks on their cheeks. when it comes to the entertainment level, it's still a well-performed flick with engrossing melodramtic clashes between characters that appease audience's salacious want but also concede to the righteously happy ending without intruding the moralistic bourgeois mass.