Myrna Loy (1929)

I just colorized this picture of Myrna Loy when making a DVD label for a friend. It's a publicity still from The Desert Song from 1929 in which Myrna plays the mystical native dancing girl Azuri. I have tried to recreate a desert feeling to the picture using earthy tones, but Myrna was no Moroccan native, her colors gives that much away. Maybe I should have made her darker, more tan... Anyway, Her famous green eyes are there, the rest is a wild guess, maybe too wild.

The Desert Song was released in April 1929 and naturally it featured sequences in Technicolor. All color scenes are lost in surviving prints so there's no way we can see what Myrna looked like in color in this particular role. Several other scenes were cut as well. After 1935, the original 1929 version became illegal to view or exhibit in the United States due to its Pre-Code content which included sexual innuendo, lewd suggestive humor and open discussion of themes such as homosexuality. Consequently, a cleaned-up version was made in 1943 and again in 1953. The version I have is probably the 1953 version made for TV. The Desert Song is a rather typical 1929 movie operetta, the basic plot was used many times. Most notably in Rio Rita, the big success of december '29, which is basically the same film plus Wheeler & Woolsey.