Bombshell

I would call "The Bombshell" (UK: "The Blonde Bombshell") Jean Harlow's funniest comedy. She exhibits enormous acting range, from emotional anguish to maternal care to melting passion, all in the service of farce. The movie's frenetic dialogue and propulsive urgency also make athletic use of Lee Tracy, the fastest talking lead actor on the screen.

In "Platinum Blonde" (1931) Harlow somewhat stiffly embodies genteel sex in service of a comedy. By 1933's "Dinner At Eight" she stands her own paired with two mighty talents. She spars lustily with Wallace Beery, a Falstaffian scene-seizer. Her lines as straight woman to Marie Dressler could not be more exquisitely rendered.

To an extent Lola Burns in "The Bombshell" spoofs Harlow's own career and image. Her character even does a retake of the rain barrel scene from "Red Dust" (1932), a picture which had Harlow sunnily portraying a good-time girl along the Malay rivers. More broadly, she helps satirize an entire merciless industry which could cruelly grind up creative personnel's egos, private lives, and sanity.

Yet, we don't have the corrosive movie-biz self-criticism of "What Price Hollywood?" (1932) or its "A Star Is Born" descendants. For all the muck it rakes up about the studio system, this remains a fun picture, a supremely good time, and a roisterous showcase for a talented star who died far too soon.

Marilyn Monroe had wanted to play Harlow in a biopic. Both luminous women left impressive, abbreviated legacies.

"Bombshell" does for the Hollywood of the 1930s what "The Player" does for the Hollywood of the 1990s. It's quite interesting to see how well established the Hollywood System was already in the early 1930s when this film was made. Already at that time the film world was centered on stars, studios, and a sycophantic support network that was focused on a false facades and phoniness. There are plenty of hilarious scenes in "Bombshell" sending up the studio system in a way that I found quite surprising given the year (1933) that this film was produced. It seems to present a sensibility - sarcastic, witty, honest - that I don't usually associate with the Golden Age of Hollywood. So many jokes about alcohol and drunkenness! "Bombshell" makes "The Thin Man" seem like an advertisement for AA by comparison.

Good supporting cast - nice to see Frank Morgan (aka the Wizard of Oz) as the inebriated father of star Jean Harlow. Lee Tracy is completely convincing as the smooth-talking oily agent who harbors a secret passion for his client. But what really makes "Bombshell" work - and which explains why I rate it at 8 out is 10 - is the tremendously self-effacing performance of Jean Harlow. She's just terrific!

In the mid '30's, Myrna Loy penned (ostensibly) an article for Photoplay titled, "So You Want To Be A Movie Star," which went into grim detail about the grind that is the real life of a star studio player both on and off the soundstage. BOMBSHELL takes this conceit and runs with it as brilliant and lacerating satire.

Jean Harlow is at her best as Lola Burns, the at-once pampered and put-upon star in question. Depicted are the constant demands for Lola's attention, time, energy and money, and the film has fun with all of it, from fatuous fan-mag interviews and staged photo ops to Hollywood politics and trouble with household and studio staff. Though awakened at the crack of dawn, Lola gets breakfast in bed - but with sauerkraut juice instead of orange juice. "There are are no oranges," apologizes the butler, to which Lola retorts, "No oranges?! This is California, man!" Before she's even out of her boudoir, Lola's had to contend with the pandemonium created by last-minute schedule changes, fussing and bickering from hair and makeup people and the inconvenient attention of her outsized dog. Finally ready to leave the house, she laments, "Well, here goes for another day; 7:00 AM and I'm already dead on my feet!"

Also driving Lola to distraction with his constant headline-grabbing stunts is the scheming studio publicity director played by the irrepressible Lee Tracy, who always gave co-stars a run for their money when it came to on-screen dominance. Harlow more than holds her own with him.

Appearing in able support are reliable players such as Franchot Tone as an apparently blue-blooded suitor unaware of Lola's fame, Pat O'Brien as her understanding director, Una Merkel as a less-than-reliable personal assistant and Louise Beavers as maid Loretta, who is deferential to Lola but takes no prisoners otherwise (responding to Merkel's early-morning crabbiness, she warns, "Don't scald me wit'cher steam, woman...I knows where the bodies is buried!"). As Lola's bombastic father and ne'er-do-well brother, respectively, the usually-lovable Frank Morgan and the never-lovable Ted Healy are ultimately rather tiresome, but that's what their roles require.

In a good-natured way, the film throws in some weirdly biographical elements of Harlow's real life, in which she coped with familial hangers-on in the persons of her domineering stage mother and somewhat sleazy stepfather, and Lola's reference to her palatial home as a "half paid-for car barn" is reported to have been uttered by Harlow herself about her own ostentatious digs. There's even a scene depicting Lola doing retakes on "Red Dust," a hit for Harlow the prior year.

In addition to snappy dialog and a mile-a-minute pace, the picture is enjoyable for its time-capsule look at the Ambassador Hotel and Coconut Grove in their heyday, as well as the grounds of the MGM lot itself, all used as locations.

Although bordering on farce at times (but in a good way), BOMBSHELL gives the impression of an only slightly exaggerated look at what the "real" life of a top-name contract player might have been like at the height of the studio system, with Harlow giving perhaps her most genuine (and least mannered) comic performance.

I missed the first half of the film on TCM but saw enough to follow the story and enjoyed what I did watch--in fact, so much so that I'll have to catch the whole film next time.

JEAN HARLOW seemed to be at the peak of her career as a blonde bombshell, just as she is in this story--and hating every moment of it. Seems she wants desperately to get away from the studio manipulations and particularly those of her ruthless press agent LEE TRACY.

MGM obviously believed enough in the story to surround Harlow with some first-rate performers including Frank Morgan as her whiskey loving father and Franchot Tone as an amorous suitor who declares he wants to "run barefoot through her hair".

It's a witty script and there's a bit of a surprise to the ending. All in all, a delightful romp for Harlow and surely her fans will appreciate her comic flair in this one.

Aces all around. This slice of madcap should end talk that Harlow was just a busty figure with platinum hair. She and Tracy deliver their lines faster than a machine gun spits out bullets, and funny lines they are. There's hardly a draggy moment as a colorful supporting cast hustles on and off stage.

Too bad Lee Tracy is a forgotten figure. His frenetic publicity agent looks like the last word in show biz hype, never without a scheming idea or a quick riposte. More importantly, his fast- talker manages to be both likable and obnoxious at the same time, not an easy trick.

Harlow may surprise with her comedic talents. Her movie star character just can't seem to escape the Hollywood hype that's taken over her life. Besides, she's got a dad and a brother unfit for polite society. Worse, they keep popping up at the wrong time. I love it when she tries to impress her betters only to be undone by dad's boisterous shenanigans. Those behind-the-scenes glimpses of studio stages and Hollywood nightlife also get some chuckles, and likely contain a lot of truth for the time. (That's the real Cocoanut Grove nightclub where Lola {Harlow} and her date go dancing.)

Anyway, the pace never lets up nor does the clever dialog, along with the expected pre-Code innuendo to spice things up. There're also several unexpected story twists that produce a perfectly apt last scene. All in all, if this isn't the legendary Harlow's best movie, I don't know what is.