Шөл дауы мен туғандық араздығы

1931 film

| runtime = 85 minutes75 minutes (edited reissue) Produced by E. B. Derr, it was directed by Howard Higgin, who also co wrote the screenplay with Tom Buckingham. The picture stars low budget Western stars William Boyd (in his pre Hopalong Cassidy era) and Helen Twelvetrees, and most notably features an unshaven young Clark Gable in his talking film debut. The film was shot mostly on location in Arizona.

Two cowboy friends, Jeff (J. Farrell MacDonald) and Cash (William Farnum), are traveling through the desert in the southwest U. S., when they come upon a baby who has been abandoned in the back of a covered wagon. They can't leave the defenseless child, so decide to take the baby with them, however, they argue over which of them would be better suited to raising the child. When Cash ends up prevailing in the debate, this creates a lifelong rift between the two friends. Years later the baby has now grown into a young man, Bill Holbrook (William Boyd), who works with his adoptive father on their cattle ranch. Cash's erstwhile friend, Jeff, has remained in the area where the infant was found and has established his own ranch, centered on the water hole where the entire feud originally began, a feud which is still in full force. Jeff lives with his grown daughter, Mary Ellen (Helen Twelvetrees). The feud escalates when Cash wants to use the water hole on Jeff's property to water his cattle. Jeff is ready to confront Cash in a stand off, preventing him from watering his cattle on the property Jeff has claimed, assisted by an itinerant cowboy, Rance Brett (Clark Gable), who has been smitten with Mary Ellen's beauty. The confrontation is temporarily avoided when Cash's herd unexpectedly stampedes. When Bill discovers tungsten on Jeff's property, he attempts to use it to close the division between his father and Jeff, however this only results in his father kicking him out. He turns to Jeff, and begins a mining operation, which actually has the opposite effect of Bill's original intention, only exacerbating the tension between Jeff and Cash. Bill and Jeff's partnership also causes tension with Rance, since Mary Ellen now shows an interest in Bill. After a shipment of tungsten which was on its way to pay the loan they had taken out to develop the mine is waylaid, Bill works furiously with the miners to replace it with another load. He is successful. However, as he is celebrating the success of the mine, as well as his impending nuptials with Mary Ellen, the mine is sabotaged by a series of explosions. Everyone believes the mine sabotage is the work of Cash, but it turns out to have been an act of jealousy on the part of Rance, who confesses, leaving the two old friends to reconcile, and their two children to marry.

Most reviews of the film were positive. Motion Picture Magazine thought the film was "worth seeing", and complimented the acting, the message and the cinematography. They stated that while you could call the plot " hokum if you will, it's the hokum of which life is made and the spectacle of the clasped hands at the end brings an authentic thrill". The National Board of Review Magazine called the film an "exciting and well done" melodrama. Picture Play magazine, while complimented the acting, commented that it could not " make a picture unaided by a story", and declaring the film was "duller and more pointless picture " than any they had ever seen.

In 1958, the film entered the public domain in the USA due to the copyright claimants' failure to renew the copyright registration in the 28th year after publication. It was remade by RKO in 1938 as Painted Desert. The studio cut several action scenes directly from the negative of their earlier version for insertion into the remake.

The Painted Desert has seen numerous budget public domain label releases on VHS and DVD. The film's original release length was 83:43, but all home video releases are of its edited 75 minute reissue version, missing the action scenes appropriated for the remake. In 2019, Kino Lorber released it alongside The Pay Off (1930) and The Silver Horde (1930) on their "RKO Classic Adventures" Blu ray and DVD. These transfers were restored by Lobster Films of France, but inexplicably The Painted Desert is still in its truncated form, despite its missing scenes being present in the extant 1938 remake.