| The Desert Song | |
|---|---|
| Directed by | Robert Florey |
| Produced by | Robert Buckner |
| Written by | Robert Buckner Oscar Hammerstein II Otto A. Harbach Frank Mandel Laurence Schwab |
| Starring | Dennis Morgan Irene Manning Bruce Cabot |
| Cinematography | Bert Glennon |
| Editing by | Frank Magee |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. |
| Release date(s) | December 17, 1943 |
| Running time | 90 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
The Desert Song is a 1943 epic musical film. It was directed by Robert Florey and starred Dennis Morgan, Irene Manning and Bruce Cabot.[1] It is based on the 1926 operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg. It was nominated an Academy Award for Best Art Direction (Charles Novi, Jack McConaghy).
This film version of the operetta is, like the 1929 film version, almost never seen today and copies are hard to come by, although it is technically more sophisticated than the earlier film due to its large budget. It tries to make the operetta topical in terms of World War II, by having the outlaw hero with a dual identity fight the Nazis as well as Arabs. As in the 1953 film, the hero's name is changed to El Khobar, rather than the Red Shadow.
The 1943 Desert Song is perhaps the only instance in which a stage operetta of the 1920's has been updated to reflect topical concerns of the 1940's.
This is the first film version of The Desert Song to be made in full three-strip Technicolor.