The Painted Desert

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The Painted Desert was an MGM film, made in 1930 and released early the following year. It marked the debut of Clark Gable in a sound picture. Gable's performance as Rance Brett, an unshaven former criminal who does not feel sorry about the crimes he has committed, made him a star overnight as the result of an avalanche of unexpected fan mail and cleared the way for him to become "The King of Hollywood" during the 1930s. Gable's powerful voice proved extremely effective for sound films. The low-budget western also starred William Boyd in his pre-Hopalong Cassidy days. Oddly, another actor with a powerful voice, Robert Mitchum, also started out playing a bearded villain in a William Boyd movie twelve years later. Both Gable and Mitchum drew so much fan mail that the studios had no choice but to take notice.

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