The Painted Desert The Painted Desert The Painted Desert is a 1931 American pre-Code film released by Pathé Exchange. Produced by E. B. Derr, it was directed by Howard Higgin, who also co-wrote the screenplay with Tom Buckingham. It starred low-budget Western stars William Boyd (in his pre-Hopalong Cassidy days) and Helen Twelvetrees, and featured a young Clark Gable in his talking film debut. The picture was shot mostly on location in Arizona. Two cowboy friends, Jeff (J. Farrell MacDonald) and Cash (William Farnum), are traveling through the desert in the southwest U.S., when they come upon a baby who has been abandoned
In the Desert an interaction between a primary voice reporting an incident ("In the desert / I saw a creature, naked, bestial") and a second character representing a position which is perceived to be inferior. The primary speaker assumes a dominant role over the "creature". "In the Desert" also serves as an example of Crane's tendency to state universal truths, and this leads to Crane's use of abstraction. Though Crane has this tendency, his use of abstraction is tempered by his allegory and parable. Crane uses only two characters in a general form, the speaker and the creature, and both characters serve the