Harlow: A Vênus Platinada

This is one of two films released at the same time about the tragic, original blonde bombshell. Carrol Baker is certainly beautiful in the role, but the strange mixture of 1930's dresses and 1960s spike heels and hairdos undermine the attempts at any accurate 1930's atmosphere. The music in the background would be more at home on an episode of "Pete and Gladys" than in a story of old Hollywood. Leslie Nielsen's character has a bachelor pad that would be the envy of Hugh Hefner. There are no true references to any of Harlow's work. She never (to my knowledge) ever took a pie in the face or was sprayed with seltzer water. (She did have an impressive walk-on in an early Laurel and Hardy short). Her earliest film appearances were as a film extra in such pictures as "The Love Parade", 1929. Her breakthrough role was in the Howard Hughes 1930 epic, "Hell's Angels". Her performances got better and better as she went under contract to MGM and made some truly classic films there including "Dinner at Eight." None of this is shown in "Harlow." The character of the Mother is shown to be pretty much sympathetic as played by Angela Lansbury. What is glossed over is the fact that Jean Harlow's real Mother was a Christian Scientist who forbade her daughter real treatment for her "illness", reportedly caused by the beatings she suffered at the hands of Paul Bern, until it was too late to make any real difference. The inaccurate facts presented in this film could be due to the fact that many of the principals involved in Jean Harlow's life were still living in 1965, the year that both of these "biopics" were released. If you want an accurate biography of Jean Harlow, see some of her actual films and read one of the many decent books about MGM. On it's own, the film "Harlow" is mildly entertaining in a "Valley of the Dolls" sort of way. The Carol Lynley version of this story is only slightly more accurate than this glossy, Technicolor version. I haven't seen it in years, and therefore cannot give an accurate review of it.