The Desert Song (1929) Review: A Dusty, Singing Relic

Is this worth watching today? Honestly, only if you are a total nerd for film history or you have a weird thing for 1920s operettas. If you hate stagey acting and people bursting into song for no reason, you will probably want to throw your remote at the wall. 🌵

I went into this thinking it would be a bit like The Winding Stair, but it’s much more... theatrical. Everything feels like it was filmed on a stage that just happens to have some sand dumped on it.

John Boles plays the lead, Pierre, who acts like a total goofball so his dad doesn't suspect he is actually the Red Shadow. When he puts on the mask, he becomes this super serious rebel leader who sings very loudly.

His voice has this vibrating quality that was probably very impressive in 1929. To me, it just sounded like he was trying to vibrate the camera lens off the tripod.

The plot is basically a proto-superhero story but with more ruffles and high-waisted pants. He loves Margot, but she doesn't like the 'wimpy' Pierre, only the mysterious guy in the red cape. It is the classic Clark Kent dynamic, just with a lot more sheet music involved. 🎶

There is this one scene where they are all in the desert and the 'Larry Ceballos Girls' start dancing. It is so random. They just appear out of nowhere in the middle of the dunes like a desert mirage of synchronized limbs.

The sound quality is pretty rough, which is expected for an early Vitaphone production. You can hear the hiss of the recording, and sometimes the actors sound like they are shouting from the bottom of a well. It gives the whole thing a ghostly, slightly creepy vibe that I actually kind of liked.

Myrna Loy shows up as Azuri, a 'native' dancer who is supposed to be exotic and dangerous. It is hilarious to see her here before she became the sophisticated lady in those Thin Man movies. She does this intense, squinty-eyed stare that I think was supposed to be seductive but mostly looks like she’s trying to remember if she left the stove on. 🤨

The comedy is... well, it's 100 years old. Louise Fazenda does her best as the funny lady, but the jokes feel like they were carved into stone tablets. I didn't laugh once, but I did appreciate her commitment to the bit.

The pacing is a real struggle. There are these long stretches where nothing happens except people standing around waiting for the next song to start. It reminds me of the slower parts of Midnight Lovers, where the movie just sort of forgets it's supposed to be moving forward.

I noticed that the extras in the background often look incredibly bored. In the big group scenes, half the 'Riffs' are just staring off into space while John Boles is beltng out his heart. One guy in the back was definitely just adjusting his turban for like three straight minutes.

The 'Red Shadow' costume is actually pretty cool in a vintage way. It’s got that Pre-Code flair where everything is a little bit more flamboyant than it would be a few years later. Though, a red cape in the desert seems like a great way to get heatstroke, if you ask me.

Roy Del Ruth directed this, and you can tell he was still figuring out how to move a camera when there’s a giant microphone hidden in a fake cactus. Most of the shots are very static. It’s like watching a series of postcards that occasionally start yelling at you.

The desert itself looks suspiciously like a California backlot. I’m pretty sure I saw the same hill in Born to Battle. They try to make it look vast, but you can almost feel the edges of the studio walls closing in. 🏜️

There is a specific moment where Boles and Carlotta King are singing a duet and they get uncomfortably close to each other. Their faces are mashed together while they both try to keep their mouths open wide enough for the high notes. It’s not romantic; it’s just a lot of teeth.

I wonder what audiences in 1929 thought of this. It must have been mind-blowing to hear them actually singing. Now, it just feels like a very loud museum exhibit that you can't wait to leave.

The ending is exactly what you think it is. No surprises here. Everything gets wrapped up in a neat little bow, and the bad guys just sort of give up because the hero sang too well at them.

If you’ve seen The Cyclist or something modern, the simplicity of this will probably give you whiplash. It belongs to a different world where 'entertainment' meant watching a man in a mask sing about his feelings for two hours.

I don't regret watching it, but I don't think I’ll ever watch it again. Once is enough for a lifetime of John Boles' vibrato. 🎤

It’s a fascinating failure of early sound cinema. It tries so hard to be grand but ends up being mostly just noisy and sandy. If you're bored on a Sunday, maybe give it twenty minutes just to see Myrna Loy’s eyebrows.

Actually, the best part was probably the title cards at the beginning. They had a nice font. Everything after that was downhill, honestly.