Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Simply Perfect

Really Surprised!

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

.....at their sheer beauty (in my opinion). If only Mary had stayed out of trouble. In my opinion (again), she was a first rate actress who was being given yet another chance to make good. She had been sacked from the Ziegfeld Follies a few years earlier for "disorderly conduct", she fled to the continent where, under another name, she became a popular film star. Fleeing bad debts she slunk back to America where under yet another name, she was given a Universal contract. Her two biggest successes were "West of Zanzibar" and "Desert Nights" both at MGM, the cream of the studios. If she had knuckled down to work, I feel sure she would have been offered an MGM contract as her talkie films show she had nothing to fear from the mike. But Universal was already tired of her shenanigans and by 1930 had let her go.Lord Stonehill and his daughter, Diana (Ernest Torrence and Mary Nolan) are due to arrive at the Crown Diamond Mine but as Hugh Rand (John Gilbert) jokes she must be cross eyed, bow legged and an old maid as no beauty would come to this God forsaken place. Being Mary Nolan of course she is a raving beauty and Hugh falls for her hard.In reality they are diamond thieves as Hugh finds out when he receives a wire from the real Lord Stonehill saying they have been delayed. This movie is lots of fun as Hugh is taken hostage on a safari. Hugh manages to untie his bonds and proposes to Diana that they both flee and leave the old "Lord" to take his chances - "Diamonds and youth, the world is ours" - he doesn't fall for the line that Steve is her father. Ernest Torrence adds another impressive evil villain to his rogue's gallery. Just when you think his Steve is a bit of a buffoon, one of his gang (who has opted to split the diamonds and head of on their own to Cape Town) staggers back to camp to die, revealing that the rest of the gang are dead because of a poisoned water hole. Steve then admits he did it and a stunned Hugh cries that he is a murderer and a fiend!!!Hugh promises to lead them out of the desert as long as "Baby" is part of the deal. There seems to be a bit of missing footage (I'm thinking a fight scene) because one moment Diana is pleading to Steve that they should give themselves up, seeing Hugh has the gun and the diamonds, the next scene Steve has the gun and has accidentally walked right back to the diamond mine. As for Diana - she has been back long enough to have a shower and to look very cool and inviting, and as Hugh says "I will give you your freedom but you will have to report to me every day - for the rest of your life".This was an excellent film and it had something for everybody. Adventures in the desert, Mary Nolan looking very easy on the eyes as she battled thirst, mirages and fending off the amorous advances of John Gilbert, who looked very handsome in his safari gear. There is even a partial nude scene involving Nolan (who else) when they finally found an oasis that wasn't a mirage. And also Ernest Torrence who boosted any movie he happened to appear in.

John Gilbert is an elegant and aplomb man; in this movie, he leaves little of that screen presence to great longevity. It's decent in parts, like how the woman's father plays the piano and it actually does manifest in the score; but really this movie is terribly old fashioned even for that time and it leaves little revolution. Is it entertaining? Well, yeah sometimes it can put you into the tracking field of what its intent is.William Nigh tries to intertwine avarice in the stages of love which is contrived. It's not like in Michael Curtiz' "Casablanca" where Rick actually is spiteful to Ingmar but there is a deep and rather oozing love that is poured into it; in this, John Gilbert is enamored, scoffing about how it's going to be a crooked old woman and having this completely changed, feels to me as if his character is sort of a pessimistic, which could bring an interesting dichotomy if it wasn't embedded into this movie with this type of old age romance.Though to be fair, the themes are already there from the get-go; it is supposed to be escapist. The problem is that in the Calihari you see no reason for the attachment between Mr Randy and Nolan's character; he is a derisive character, of course, only used for their greedy and rapacious thirst for the diamonds, using him as part of the experience. He so delightfully embraces Nolan, the only hiccup being her Dad's disapproval of the whole affair. "Oxen must not go loose or it will kill" - I don't actually recall seeing one but that's kind of irrelevant. The dehydration and murky desert atmosphere give it a real sense of the desert, though still pretty old fashioned theater for that point.William Nigh must have perspired as well as the whole cast (while not a lot) of this film; that also makes it feel genuine.The ending is actually rather bittersweet; still John Gilbert's performance did give this movie a certain weight. I don't think I have ever seen a movie with this type of cast and it made it feel a bit different, of course onwards there have been movies like this but I mean where the desert felt so small, yet feel like the sphere of it in such a short movie.Anyway, I do think it's a shame for Gilbert subsequent from this; that line "Your lips told me so, your eyes told me so..." and so on is the greatest travesty in the devolution of sound cinema and it's a shame to see an actor under the wing of the producer Irving Thalberg to die so young and be panned like that... So while it's all in all all right, I'll give this movie a 5 for the effort and toil that was most likely put into this movie. However, "The Jazz Singer" would have most likely snobbed its box office revenue at that point, seeing that it was a pretty big movie and got raved about for most of that year; I do understand that MGM's reluctance with Sound may have been the reason they showcased this movie at ease and so I don't really blame them for it; as we know the vitaphone was the failure to John Gilbert's career.

Desert Nights (1929) *** (out of 4)John Gilbert's final silent picture is a pretty interesting one even if its reputation isn't that high. In the film he plays Hugh Rand, a diamond mine owner in South Africa. One day a father (Ernest Torrence) and daughter (Mary Nolan) show up on invitation for some good hunting but it turns out they're a pair of thieves who take Hugh hostage as well as steal $500,000 in diamonds. The three head off into the desert for their escape but soon they're out of water and not sure which way to go so the thieves must depend on Hugh to save their lives. Watching this film there's no doubt that it was rushed together just to save time before MGM had to put Gilbert into a sound feature. I'm really not sure why they selected this one to remain silent as the material could have made for an interesting early talkie but I must say it's a good thing that they kept it silent. The movie runs an extremely quick 62-minutes and for the most part is very entertaining. The reason I say it works best as a silent is because of the hot sexuality throughout the film between Gilbert and Nolan. The two of them certainly heat up the screen and this is apparent early on in a simple dinner sequence where the two begin to get to know one another. Just the way they look at one another just tells you all the sexual undertones you'll need to know. Once the film moves out to the desert it picks up the entertainment as it's clear Gilbert's character is just having fun tormenting the two thieves by constantly reminding them that death is near. I really loved the way Gilbert played the role in a sort of madness that his character finally breaks through and decides to have some fun with the people who kidnapped him. The way he torments the "Father" by coming onto the girl was a lot of fun and just added to the sexual tension running through the film. Gilbert is a lot of fun in the role as he gets to play that tough guy everyone loved him as and I'm sure the women really ate up seeing him burning in that hot sun. Torrence is a real blast as the bad guy as he eats up every scene he's in and you can't help but love to hate him. He's such a arrogant jerk at the start of the film so it's fun seeing him tortured by Gilbert. Nolan is incredibly beautiful in her role and this includes a great sequence with her bathing naked. We don't actually see anything but the implications of the scene are easy to see. Her and Gilbert really burn up the screen and make it worth sitting through. In many ways this film reminds me of a silly serial that has just about everything happening. This film offers up some nice tension but there's also plenty of sexuality, comedy and even camp value especially the scene with the machine gun tied on the side of a car. Fans of silent cinema will really eat this thing up but even those who aren't fans will probably find themselves having fun.

If Desert Nights had come out in 1926 instead of 1929 people would be far less critical of it. I thought it was a super sexy melodrama and romance, with great performances by John Gilbert, beautiful Mary Nolan, and Ernest Torrence, the perfect villain with a touch of humor.My favorite scene is in the beginning, before the trouble begins, when Ernest is playing the piano and the young couple, played by Mary and John, waltzed on the front porch. John Gilbert could have been a professional dancer, he was that good.The story is about a bunch of jewel thieves caught in the desert, but you really won't care. Just watch it for the stars, and to see just how gorgeous John Gilbert still looked in 1929. Sigh.9 out of 10 stars.