Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

After playing with our expectations, this turns out to be a very different sort of film.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The star of this film is William Boyd, who made a bunch of westerns for Pathe in his time. As a matter of fact, on the opening credits,Clark Gable isn't even listed. Later, when they name the entire cast he is mentioned, but he comes way behind top rated Boyd and even now largely forgotten Helen Twelvetrees.Two pioneers, Cash Holbrook and Jeff Cameron, are trekking across the desert when they find a deserted encampment with one survivor, a baby boy. The two fight over where to go next. Jeff Cameron wants to stay at the waterhole because "it is a grub stake" - all people driving cattle through will need this waterhole. Cash Holbrook wants to continue on to grazing land so he can raise cattle. He calls Jeff stubborn, and takes the baby too, daring Jeff to shoot because if he does, the baby will fall from Cash's arms and break his neck.About twenty years pass and Cash has become a wealthy cattleman. Not being ambitious in the old west has cost Jeff. He married, but his wife died in this harsh environment, and all he has left is his daughter, Mary Ellen (Helen Twelvetrees). In all of this time Cash and Jeff have agitated one another - Jeff is still angry at Cash for stealing the baby boy that is now a man, refusing to let Cash's herd use his watering hold for any price and makes him go 27 miles around. One night it is coming to a showdown. Cash is going to stampede his cattle to Jeff's watering hole and show him who is boss. Jeff and his daughter are prepared to shoot it out to stop him. Along comes a stranger - Gable as Rance Brent, and with him instantly taken with Mary Ellen, Rance decides to back them up in the shootout.Cash's adopted son comes out and stampedes the cattle away from the watering hole to prevent the deadly shootout. Cash is angry, and throws Bill (Bill Boyd) out. Bill went to mining school, discovers tungsten on Jeff's land, and enters into a mining partnership with his dad's sworn enemy.Now this is where the movie is weird. Bill is acting Gandhi-like saying that he takes neither side, he just wants Cash and Jeff to be friends again and that neither is bad or wrong. I beg to disagree, because to me Cash IS a bad man up to this point. First he uses Bill the infant as a human shield, and when Bill keeps something from escalating into bloodshed, Cash throws that son out of his life.In the meantime, Jeff and Bill's mine is yielding lots of ore, and out of nowhere - certainly not out of any dialogue that I could perceive - Bill and Mary Ellen are in love. Meanwhile somebody is sniping at the drivers who are taking the ore into town to the railroad, and then some dynamite disappears and the mine is blown to smithereens. Everybody on Jeff's place blames Cash, and it is up to Bill to stop another potential showdown and shootout. I'll let you watch and find out what happens.This film has absolutely no background music, which was common in early films, and much of the dialogue is very pedestrian. However, it is a good chance to see Gable in his first sound film, and although he hardly utters a word, you can see the beginning of "that Gable style".

Clark Gable in his first big role. He gets low billing but has plenty of screen time to make it appear as if he's one of the stars. Very interesting to see him as a villain in this early Western talkie. It's bigger than a B-western but not quite as fully formed as a feature film; it's somewhere in the middle. Beautiful Arizona locations but terrible production and poor acting aside from Gable and the leading lady, playing opposite western star William Boyd. This really isn't anything especially noteworthy except for Gable's appearance but I'm still glad I got to see it.5.7 / 10 stars--Zoooma, a Kat Pirate Screener

Two men traveling west find a baby boy in the desert and quarrel over which one will raise him. One steals away with the boy and becomes a wealthy rancher while the other stays put beside a waterhole and remains an impoverished homesteader.Years later the boy has grown up to become a fair-minded man who tries to reconcile the two bitter enemies, partnering with his father's old friend in a mining operation beset by mistrust due to unexplained sabotage.The Painted Desert is mostly remembered nowadays for featuring future Hopalong Cassidy star William Boyd and the first talking performance by Clark Gable.Though undoubtedly harmed by having nearly all it's action sequences carved up as stock footage for later films, it's still worth watching and has a nice Hollywood sheen not seen in later B-westerns.

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.