B-movie favorite Richard Dix heads up the cast of Yellow Dust. The actor spent fourteen years at RKO, from 1929 to 1943, where he starred in 30-plus films, mostly adventure and western programmers. All of this was a little off track from Dix's original career goal to become a surgeon. But after appearing in school plays and taking evening drama courses, a talent for acting could not be ignored. Dix joined a local stock company in Minnesota before finally landing a lead role with the Morosco Stock Company in Los Angeles. He made his Hollywood debut in Not Guilty (1921) for Paramount and turned out picture after picture for the studio in the '20s. Some of Dix's most notable Paramount films include: the behind-the-scenes Hollywood tale Souls for Sale (1923); the Zane Grey adaptation The Vanishing American (1925); an appearance in the modern portion of Cecil B. DeMille's early The Ten Commandments (1923); and opposite Jean Arthur in the baseball picture Warming Up (1928), which was Paramount's first feature with synchronized music and effects.
Dix made the jump to RKO in the mystery-comedy Seven Keys to Baldpate (1929). He, and the studio, soon had a major success with Cimarron (1931), which won the Best Picture Oscar® and earned Dix a Best Actor nomination. It would be Dix's only Oscar® nomination and the only film produced by RKO to be named Best Picture. Other memorable Dix-RKO efforts include: the war drama Ace of Aces (1933), the aviation thriller The Lost Squadron (1932) and Val Lewton's The Ghost Ship (1943). Dix rounded out his career in a series of Whistler films at Columbia before illness forced him to retire in 1947.
Joining Dix in Yellow Dust are some familiar supporting players. There's Andy Clyde in the role of Solitary. Clyde got his movie start with Mack Sennett as an extra in comedy shorts. He signed with Columbia in 1934 and cranked out innumerable short films over the next twenty-two years. Clyde also played sidekick to William Boyd in the Hopalong Cassidy series of films and he still found time to appear in the occasional feature, such as Annie Oakley (1935) and It's a Wonderful World (1939). Yellow Dust also features Onslow Stevens as the bad guy Hanway. Stevens was a busy character actor who left his mark on films such as The Three Musketeers (1935) where he played Aramis; House of Dracula (1945) with Lon Chaney, Jr.; the Bogart vehicle Sirocco (1951); and the atomic era sci-fi film Them! (1954).
Finally, there's Leila Hyams who plays Nellie in Yellow Dust. Hyams is likely best remembered for playing Venus in Tod Browning's Freaks (1932). She also appeared in the radio spectacular The Big Broadcast (1932) alongside stars like Bing Crosby and George Burns and Gracie Allen and worked with Jean Harlow in Red-Headed Woman (1932). She also starred in the 1933 version of Island of Lost Souls (1933) with Charles Laughton. Hyams would retire from the movies in 1936; Yellow Dust would be her final film.
Producer: Cliff Reid
Director: Wallace Fox
Screenplay: Cyril Hume, John Twist (based on the play "Mother Lode" by George O'Neil & Dan Totheroh)
Cinematography: Edward Cronjager
Art Direction: Van Nest Polglase
Music: Alberto Colombo
Film Editing: James B. Morley
Cast: Richard Dix (Bob Culpepper), Leila Hyams (Nellie Brian), Moroni Olsen (Missouri), Jessie Ralph (Mrs. Brian), Andy Clyde (Silas 'Solitary' Carter), Onslow Stevens (Jack Hanway).
BW-69m.
by Stephanie Thames
