John Gilbert's final silent film is actually my favorite of his work. Here he plays a guy that, while not a rogue, isn't always noble or even likable. Initially held hostage by a diamond thief duo in the middle of the desert, the trio gets in over their heads and eventually worry more about surviving than who gets the precious stones. There's a kind of noir vibe to the proceedings-- not necessarily in the movie's overall aesthetic or character types, but in just how nasty and cynical it gets about human nature. Of course, the ending rubs that cynicism out with its conventional "he gets the girl and she goes straight" thing, but Desert Nights still remains a taut thriller, suffused with a tense atmosphere and a palpable erotic charge.
Review of Desert Nights
