The Desert Song

This was the first of the three versions of the successful stage operetta. With THE JAZZ SINGER, Warner Bros. had been the premier studio to debut sound and was determined to keep its position as an innovator, so it acquired the rights to THE DESERT SONG and presented filmdom's first all-talking, all-singing operetta. The curiosity value of the picture, not the plot, was what made it a hit. The story of The Red Shadow and Pierre Bierbeau (the same person, played by Boles) was seen often in later years, except it became known as The Scarlet Pimpernel. Boles is a weak wimp while in the guise of Bierbeau, and then becomes the hard-riding leader of The Riffs, who battl...