The Desert Song is a musical operetta film photographed partly in two-color Technicolor

Technicolor

Technicolor is a color motion picture process invented in 1916 and improved over several decades.It was the second major process, after Britain's Kinemacolor, and the most widely used color process in Hollywood from 1922 to 1952...

. This was the first movie released by Warner Bros. to be in color. Although some of the songs from the show have been omitted, the film is otherwise virtually a duplicate of the stage production. It was based on the hit musical play by Sigmund Romberg

Sigmund Romberg

Sigmund Romberg was a Hungarian-born American composer, best known for his operettas.-Biography:Romberg was born as Siegmund Rosenberg to a Jewish family in Gross-Kanizsa during the Austro-Hungarian kaiserlich und königlich monarchy period...

 and book

Book

A book is a set or collection of written, printed, illustrated, or blank sheets, made of hot lava, paper, parchment, or other materials, usually fastened together to hinge at one side. A single sheet within a book is called a leaf or leaflet, and each side of a leaf is called a page...

 and lyrics

Lyrics

Lyrics are a set of words that make up a song. The writer of lyrics is a lyricist or lyrist. The meaning of lyrics can either be explicit or implicit. Some lyrics are abstract, almost unintelligible, and, in such cases, their explication emphasizes form, articulation, meter, and symmetry of...

 by Oscar Hammerstein

Oscar Hammerstein II

Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...

 and Otto Harbach

Otto Harbach

Otto Abels Harbach, born Otto Abels Hauerbach was an American lyricist and librettist of about 50 musical comedies...

, respectively. The stage musical opened at the Casino Theatre on Broadway on November 30, 1926 and ran for a very successful 465 performances.

Plot

French General Birabeau has been sent to Morocco to root out and destroy the Riff

RIFF

The Resource Interchange File Format is a generic file container format for storing data in tagged chunks. It is primarily used to store multimedia such as sound and video, though it may also be used to store any arbitrary data....

s, a band of Arab rebels, who threaten the safety of the French outpost in the Moroccan desert. Their dashing, daredevil leader is the mysterious "Red Shadow". Margot Bonvalet, a lovely, sassy French girl, is soon to be married at the fort to Birabeau's right-hand man, Captain Fontaine. Birabeau's son Pierre, in reality the Red Shadow, loves Margot, but pretends to be a milksop to preserve his secret identity. Margot tells Pierre that she secretly yearns to be swept into the arms of some bold, dashing sheik, perhaps even the Red Shadow himself. Pierre, as the Red Shadow, kidnaps Margot and declares his love for her.

To her surprise, Margot's mysterious abductor treats her with every Western consideration. When the Red Shadow comes face to face with General Birabeau, the old man challenges the rebel leader to a duel. Of course Pierre will not kill his own father, so he refuses to fight, losing the respect of the Riffs. Azuri, the sinuous and secretive native dancing girl, might be persuaded to answer some of these riddles if only she can be persuaded by Captain Fontaine.
Meanwhile, two other characters, Benny (a reporter) and Susan provide comic relief. Eventually, the Red Shadow's identity is discovered, a deal is struck with the Riffs, and Pierre and Margot live happily ever after.

Warner Brothers color movies in order of release date

Title	Year	Preservation
The Desert Song	1929	Survives in black and white with missing musical number.
On With the Show	1929	Only survives in black and white.
Gold Diggers of Broadway	1929	Lost film Lost film A lost film is a feature film or short film that is no longer known to exist in studio archives, private collections or public archives such as the Library of Congress, where at least one copy of all American films are deposited and catalogued for copyright reasons... . Only two reels survive and full soundtrack on phonographic disc
Paris Paris (1929 film) Paris is a black-and-white musical comedy film with Technicolor sequences: four of ten reels were originally photographed in Technicolor. Paris was the fourth color movie released by Warner Bros.; the first three were The Desert Song, On With the Show and Gold Diggers of Broadway, all released in...	1929	Lost film.
The Show of Shows	1929	Photographed almost entirely in color by Technicolor, but today only survives in black and white television copy's with only one surviving color sequence in color, The Chinese Fantasy with Myrna Loy Myrna Loy Myrna Loy was an American actress. Trained as a dancer, she devoted herself fully to an acting career following a few minor roles in silent films. Originally typecast in exotic roles, often as a vamp or a woman of Asian descent, her career prospects improved following her portrayal of Nora Charles...  and Nick Lucas Nick Lucas Nick Lucas born Dominic Nicholas Anthony Lucanese was an American singer and pioneer jazz guitarist, remembered as "the grandfather of the jazz guitar", whose peak of popularity lasted from the mid-1920s to the early 1930s.-Career:In 1922, at the age of 25, he gained renown with his hit renditions...
Sally	1929	Only survives in black and white except The Wild Rose scene.
General Crack General Crack General Crack is an all-talking historical costume drama film with Technicolor sequences which was produced by Warner Bros. in 1929 and released early in 1930...	1930	Survives in a silent copy.
No, No Nanette	1930	Lost film.
Hold Everything Hold Everything (1930 film) Hold Everything is a 1930 early all-talking film. It was the first musical comedy film to be released that was photographed entirely in early two-color Technicolor. It was adapted from the DeSylva-Brown-Henderson Broadway musical of the same name that had served as a vehicle for Bert Lahr and...	1930	Lost film.

Pre-Code Sequences

After 1935, the original 1929 version became illegal to view or exhibit in the United States due to its Pre-Code

Pre-Code

Pre-Code Hollywood refers to the era in the American film industry between the introduction of sound in the late 1920s and the enforcement of the Motion Picture Production Code censorship guidelines. Although the Code was adopted in 1930, oversight was poor and it did not become rigorously...

 content which included sexual innuendo, lewd suggestive humor and open discussion of themes such as homosexuality (e.g. Johnny Arthur plays a character who is obviously gay). Consequently, a cleaned-up version was made in 1943

The Desert Song (1943 film)

The Desert Song is a 1943 epic musical film. It was directed by Robert Florey and starred Dennis Morgan, Irene Manning and Bruce Cabot. It is based on the 1926 operetta with music by Sigmund Romberg...

 and again in 1953.

Songs

Act One

• Riff Song
• French Marching Song
• Then You Will Know
• The Desert Song
• Azuri's Dance

Act Two

• Love's Dear Yearning
• Let Love Go
• One Flower
• One Alone
• Sabre Song
• The Desert Song Ballet

Preservation

The film exists only in a black and white copy. The film elements are missing from a small portion of one of the musical numbers but the complete soundtrack survives intact on Vitaphone

Vitaphone

Vitaphone was a sound film process used on feature films and nearly 1,000 short subjects produced by Warner Bros. and its sister studio First National from 1926 to 1930. Vitaphone was the last, but most successful, of the sound-on-disc processes...

disks.