Jean Harlow on Criterion
Sunday, August 22, 2021 at 10:00PM 
During the past years, the Criterion Channel has highlighted the careers of many Old Hollywood stars. After Carole Lombard, Mae West, Joan Crawford, Jean Arthur, Rita Hayworth, and many more, it's time to celebrate Jean Harlow. In this case, the selection of titles entices because of how encompassing it is. The Criterion Channel presents 14 films, every feature the starlet did while on contract with MGM, from 1932 to her untimely death in 1937. By watching these works, one can get a good sense of Harlow's meteoric rise, how her persona evolved, how it changed to accommodate personal and physical transformations, a transfiguration of industry ideals and popular tastes. Furthermore, the movies showcase other great stars and the work of such vital 1930s screenwriters as Anita Loos and Dorothy Parker. It's a perfect treasure trove of Old Hollywood moviemaking, history, and scandal…
Before delving into Jean Harlow's MGM tenure, let's examine some of the starlet's pre-1932 biography. In many ways, she was the original blonde bombshell. Through Harlow, the industry established a Hollywood model it would return to, over and over again. Indeed, Marilyn Monroe would often point to Harlow as an inspiration, an aspirational idol. That being said, Jean Harlow wasn't her given name, nor was it an invention of some hotshot exec. Harlean Carpenter got her stage persona by taking on her mother's maiden name, perpetuating the older woman's failed Hollywood dreams. What the original Jean Harlow couldn't achieve, her daughter would.
This new Jean Harlow was "born" in 1928 after the would-be actress was spotted by studio execs while driving a friend to the movie lot. Fueled by erstwhile ambitions, the actress' mother pressured the younger woman into a Hollywood career which eventually tore a chasm in the daughter's marriage. Separated from her wealthy husband, Jean Harlow needed movie work to survive, diving deep into a profession she didn't seek or desire in the first place. Her first movies were Laurel & Hardy shorts, a good indicator that the actress was always a natural at playing comedy. She also did many bit parts, often uncredited, in bigger productions.
Harlow wasn't part of the original cast of Hughes's WWI epic Hell's Angels, however. Her participation was a last-minute move. After the production had gone so obscenely over schedule that the silent had given in to talking pictures, Hughes was in search of an actress that could take on the part played initially by the Scandinavian Greta Nissen. Jean Harlow fit the bill. However, to the moviemakers that orchestrated her "a star is born" moment, the actress was little more than a curvaceous slab of meat, valuable for her sex appeal and little else. Some of that contempt would influence how she was perceived by audiences, the press, by industry folk, and film history.
Hughes's media machine ensured that Jean Harlow would be a famous figure, nicknaming her "the platinum blonde." Unfortunately, the man's ability to make the actress into a celebrity didn't equal his talent, or indeed his willingness, to further her career. So instead, he lent her to other studios. During this period, Harlow's most significant projects were Wellman's The Public Enemy and Capra's Platinum Blonde. That latter production is of particular importance because it wasn't conceived as a vehicle for Harlow. Originally, Loretta Young was the star and, within the plot, she is the one who gets a happy ending. However, the camera loved Harlow, even as she played an unsympathetic rich girl. For their part, audiences went wild for the peroxided blonde.
In the face of such phenomenal popularity, internal pressures at MGM forced negotiation with the Texan aviator. Louis B. Mayer might have scorned Harlow, seeing her as a floozy stereotype antithetical to his studio's brand. Still, Irving Thalberg was convinced he could make her into one of the company's hottest properties, a star like none other. He was right, and that's where this Criterion Channel's collection starts:
RED-HEADED WOMAN (1932)
In trying to reimagine Jean Harlow as an MGM star, Thalberg literally dissociated her from the persona Hughes had devised. In Red-Headed Woman, Harlow was not a platinum blonde anymore. Moreover, she wasn't playing second fiddle to another actor, starring in a narrative built around her stardom. Scheming and seducing her way up the social ladder, Harlow delivers an astoundingly entertaining performance, pouty and fun, eyes glinting with crass intelligence.
The best part is that the anti-heroine goes unpunished for her sexual transgressions, getting a romantic ending with Charles Boyer's steamy chauffer. Even when "fallen woman" melodramas were at the height of their popularity, that's a rarity. Anita Loos's script doesn't condemn erotic manipulation, preferring to clap in honor of its success. The characters within the story may pass judgment, but the movie seldom does, indulging in self-aware mischievousness and inviting us along for the ride.
RED DUST (1932)
The year she became an MGM superstar was also when Jean Harlow married German-born filmmaker Paul Bern. Two months after the wedding, the man was found dead in an incident ruled a suicide by authorities. With death came scandal, an unraveling of Bern's troubled biography, sexual incapacities, and a further besmirching of Harlow's public image. MGM fought against that last one, tearing Bern apart in postmortem gossip to paint the widow as a helpless victim. The success of such press strategies was dubious, but nothing could diminish Harlow's popularity at that point. The tragedy coincided with filming what I consider to be Jean Harlow's best picture, Red Dust.
The shooting wasn't easy, though Harlow held on to work as a way of running away from the fresh wounds of trauma. She also started drinking heavily, a vice that would follow her to the last days and which didn't help her emotionally fraught state. In a pivotal scene of Red Dust, when her character talks about driving men mad, the starlet couldn't say the line. Not wanting to register the widow's sorrow, Fleming shot around Harlow, avoiding too many closeups of her. The result of this small mercy is an intensely physical movie where her performance is one of the most visceral depictions of sexuality in Pre-Code talkie cinema.
Still, the sadness shone through as it would do in most of Harlow's subsequent dramatic pictures. Instead of detracting from the movie's efficacy, though, it augmented it. There's an inchoate melancholy to Harlow's earthiness, the sparkling sound of hidden depths informing every line, complicating seductiveness until it feels messy and honest, a state of being rather than social playacting. In addition, it would be the first time she was paired with Clark Gable, a winning duo to which MGM would return many times over.
Hollywood resurrected Red Dust in 1952 with a John Huston-directed remake where Gable reprised the leading role. Mogambo starred Ava Garner in Harlow's part, which resulted in a Best Actress nomination. Sadly, the blonde bombshell was never similarly embraced by AMPAS.
HOLD YOUR MAN (1933)
MGM was quick to capitalize on the success of the Gable-Harlow pairing. Hold Your Man is based on another script by Anita Loos and, once again, finds Harlow playing a character type that would be vilified in lesser, more unilaterally moralistic flicks. This time, she's Ruby Adams, a wisecracking cynic with lots of boyfriends. One day, she falls in love with a criminal who hides in her apartment. Later, Ruby gets arrested for a crime she didn't commit, incriminated by a series of unlikely events.
Most of the action is set inside a women's reformatory, allowing for some smashing ensemble work by an exquisite cast. Harlow is brilliant, exploring avenues of demonstrative fragility she hadn't yet showcased. However, the supporting players are just as good, ranging from the hilarious (Barbara Barondess as a vociferous socialist inmate) to the touching (Theresa Harris as a preacher's daughter fallen from grace). Hold Your Man is a deceptively generous movie, extending empathy towards every character that's not an overbearing cop.
DINNER AT EIGHT (1933)
Irving Thalberg wanted Harlow to function as someone the audiences could laugh at. Unlike many other stars, this one wasn't especially concerned with matters of actorly respectability, so she had no trouble indulging in such antics. Dinner at Eight is probably the apotheosis of this ethos, even as George Cukor molded Harlow's presence into a figure that's much more than a laughing stock. In the hands of this actors' director, the starlet learned how to weaponize her comedic chops, becoming an agent of funny business rather than a passive figure to whom people would react with humorous scorn.
Covered in creamy silks, dresses so tight she was sewn into them, Harlow's trophy wife character is a dream of sexy comedy. Moreover, she's a great sparring partner for battles of witty dialogue, eliciting the tragicomedy's last big laugh in a brief interaction with Marie Dressler. The movie was Harlow's biggest grosser of 1933, a banner year for the star.
BOMBSHELL (1933)
In some ways, Bombshell is a proto pre-Code screwball comedy, anticipating the lightspeed dialogue that would consolidate the genre in the next year's The Twentieth Century. The movie is meant to satirize Hollywood stars in the model of Clara Bow, those celebrities who are over-analyzed by all those around them, simultaneously put on a pedestal and cannibalized by the vultures. However, Jean Harlow's presence at its center shapes the narrative around her own persona.
Watching the movie in the 21st century, it's difficult not to read it like a dissection of Harlow's stardom. It's a brutal evisceration that makes us laugh with its meanness while also offering the actress a showcase. Technically, hers is an innovative performance that precedes Carole Lombard's rapid rhythms and follows the tradition of Marion Davies' overlapped chatter in films like Blondie of the Follies. Fleming needed that speed to make Bombshell work, trying to squeeze a garrulous screenplay in the slight package of a 96-minute comedy. All in all, it's an important historical artifact but not one of Harlow's most enjoyable ventures.
THE GIRL FROM MISSOURI (1934)
Shot during a transition period, from Pre-Code to the dictatorship of the Hays office, The Girl from Missouri finds MGM transforming Jean Harlow once more. This time, she's a social climber in the same model of Red-Headed Woman. Well, sort of. This girl from Missouri may want fortune through marriage, but she's not willing to give up her virtue for it. If anything, her beau is the more morally compromised character, a libertine pretty boy played by Bombshell's Franchot Tone.
Because of him, the flick is short but not very sweet. Cruel would be a better word, so much so that it ends up being a lousy romance whose putatively happy conclusion can't help but feel bitter. At the same time, while it fails as a love story, it succeeds as a character study of its splendorous lead. That's especially true when the star is asked to embody overwhelming sorrow. Her tearful pleas to Tone are unforgettable, as is the crumbling bombshell persona of the last scenes.
RECKLESS (1935)
Harlow's first flop also marks her first on-screen encounter with off-screen paramour William Powell (Franchot Tone is also here as another drunken playboy). Reckless is a bizarre movie, a musical built around a thespian who couldn't sing and had to be dubbed through most of her songs. Moreover, Victor Fleming proved to be as musically inept as his leading lady. While trying to imitate Busby Berkeley, the director trips over his own shooting style, making every musical number feel inorganic, a rotting appendage that gradually kills the whole organism.
That's not to say the movie is devoid of charm. The costumes and sets are delicious confections, and Harlow is as luminous as ever, playing a similar type to her Bombshell diva. There's also the bonus of the movie's real-life inspiration to those who like Old Hollywood tittle-tattle. If Bombshell wanted to satirize Clara Bow, Reckless was heavily inspired by Libby Holman's scandals.
CHINA SEAS (1935)
Jean Harlow's career can be neatly divided into two halves by the Hays Code of 1934. If The Girl from Missouri showed the moment of transition, China Seas illuminates the later stages of Harlow's transformation. This case is notably flagrant because, in theme and plot, the movie could be confused for a remake of Red Dust in a naval setting. However, the overt sensuality of the 1932 picture has been erased from the on-screen behavior, making the characters feel as if an invisible force constricts them. The erotic charge still exists, though.
That aspect is now sublimated into the camera's smooth movements and Garnett's elegant direction, MGM's opulent set design, and luxuriant costumes. Indeed, the best moments in the flick revolve around the artifice of screen glamour, dressing room passages and mirror reflections, bits of humorous banter that go by as characters switch looks and selves. While this was Rosalind Russell's second movie with Harlow, the supporting actress who shines brightest is Hattie McDaniel in a comedic part.
RIFFRAFF (1936)
1936 marked a definite turning point in Harlow's career, the end of her evolution. The process by which MGM had been reshaping her image away from hedonistic sex symbol was complete. Since her hair was starting to fall out after years of weekly retouches and root bleaching, she was given wigs and a dark blonde rinse. This more demure appearance befit roles that seemed to deconstruct, and sometimes openly criticize, the sort of Pre-Code amorality she once embodied.
The slinky dresses gave way to more covered-up fashions, a desperate attempt to hide weight fluctuations and underline her changed character type. While recycling elements from Hold Your Man, Riffraff exemplifies these changes in Harlow. It's also decidedly more simplistic than the 1933 movie, though a sensational prison escape sequence gives the illusion of bite. Paired, for the first time, with Spencer Tracy, Harlow is beautifully desperate. Moreover, the camera loves her, and we, the audience, are made to feel that same passion.
WIFE VS. SECRETARY (1936)
Jean Harlow deserved an Oscar nomination for Wife vs. Secretary. That statement might seem a bit bold considering the actress' reputation, but I think I've outed myself as a bit of a Harlow fanboy. Moreover, the role of a dutiful secretary who incurs the unfounded suspicions of her boss' wife happens to be a perfect intersection of the performer's talent for both comedy and sentimentality. In other words, it's difficult not to smile along with Harlow and even harder to remain stoic in the face of her projected angst.
Better yet, Harlow is not alone in giving an outstanding performance. Myrna Loy, Clark Gable, and a baby-faced Jimmy Stewart are remarkable too, not to mention charming. Their combined talents redeem a screenplay that sometimes verges on the moralistic. Put in another way, the text asks for blunt force in handling its themes, but the actors chose the path of levity, playing delicate notes of yearning. This beautiful strategy actively contradicts the most sanctimonious facets of Wife vs. Secretary.
SUZY (1936)
Try as one might, it's challenging to reconcile the wit of Dorothy Parker with the inanity of Suzy, the only film the writer ever scripted for Harlow. Indeed, the only actor who feels as if they are delivering lines punched up by that erstwhile member of the Vicious Circle is Cary Grant. Still, he's blander than usual. In truth, Suzy feels like MGM's attempt at evoking the memory of Hell's Angels. They even re-used some aerial footage of Hughes' movie.
Denuded of acerbic dialogue, asked to be a dramatic figure of saintly sacrifices and unlucky loves, Harlow is without some of her best assets – namely, any semblance of comedy. Instead, she must breathe life into a bizarre romantic triangle with international spy games woven in between. For the most part, she excels at this, elevating the material above its textual mediocrity. Franchot Tone does little to help the starlet, but Grant proves to be an apt screen partner, and two produce some passionate sizzle. While not setting the screen aflame, they strike a flint.
LIBELED LADY (1936)
There's an odd indignity to Harlow's casting in the journalistic comedy Libeled Lady. Not only is the platinum blonde posited against Myrna Loy (again), but she loses her real-life lover to the other actress within the narrative. Instead, Harlow has to content herself with Spencer Tracy (again). In an industry so fond of capitalizing on romantic chemistry, it's remarkable how MGM refused to make Harlow and Powell a Silver Screen power couple. They had chemistry for days. Grumblings aside, this is a delicious comedy with a plot of switched couples and deceit that's so convoluted as to be impossible to re-tell.
One has to see it to believe it, basking in the glory of the all-star quartet whose dynamic veers between high-concept hilarity and aching earnestness. While she's sidelined for much of the story, Harlow owns the beginning and end of this movie, blowing up in formidable fashion while also highlighting the genuine emotional cost of lies, libel, and a lover's negligence.
PERSONAL PROPERTY (1937)
After the success of My Man Godfrey, Hollywood returned to the concept of the butler with a secret identity many times over, capturing the blossoming of romance through put-upon social hierarchies and equivocal class barriers. Personal Property is one of the most anemic examples of the trend. Let's put it this way – Robert Taylor was very handsome, but he was no William Powell. The script also needed some considerable polishing, often feeling too contrived and not charming enough.
As always, though, Jean Harlow managed to elevate the material she was given. MGM was obsessed with defanging her persona and making her a proper lady of the silver screen, but the spark of early Harlow movies was still present in her acting. Watch how she commits to the emotional outbursts, the physicality of her on-screen love, how fun boredom can be when played by a star. Still, like the movie itself, Harlow feels as if she was losing energy near the end.
SARATOGA (1937)
Jean Harlow had dental surgery before the filming of Saratoga began. Its effects would haunt the production. As it happened, the actress's mouth was rotting with infection, her body crumbling under the pressure of disease, blistering gums, and expired kidneys. To watch this and Personal Property is to see the light fade from Harlow. And indeed, she died before it was completed, a sudden and shocking nightmare that influences how one perceives the movie. As a fan of Jean Harlow, this is a painful artifact, made more unbearable by the noticeable gaps left behind.
While Jack Conway tried to solve the problem of insufficient material, one feels Harlow's absence in many pivotal scenes. In the end, Saratoga was released posthumously, ending a legendary career with a whimper rather than a bang. Still, it's a beautiful piece of Old Hollywood fluff, simmering with bruised emotion. It's also outfitted in gorgeous costumes, one of which went with Harlow to her grave. Even in death, she was the image of a Hollywood superstar gone to seed, the ultimate tragedy of Tinsel Town.
What's your favorite Jean Harlow movie? Sound off in the comments.
Reader Comments (5)
I had an iconic poster of her on my wall as a teenager, believe it or not, even though I'd only seen one of her movies. And I'm embarrassed to say I've still only seen five at most. Need to rectify that ASAP.
Working stiff -- Which ones have you seen? If you do explore more of her filmography, I hope you have fun. Even the movies I find mediocre end up being enjoyable because of Harlow's presence.
@ Cláudio
I've seen Red Dust, The Public Enemy, Dinner at Eight, Libeled Lady and Saratoga. I'll probably check out some of these Criterion titles as well.
Nice overview of Jean’s career and films. Loved reading it, just one small thing (I hate to be that guy) a starlet is an actress with a promising future and that was Harlow when she came to MGM but after Red-Headed Woman she was indisputably a star until her death.
For someone famous for being a kind and thoughtful person she had a rough life, even in death she had some hard knocks. There are several terrible almost completely specious biographies out that demean and defame her memory and the less said about the two so-called biographical films (both named Harlow) that came out at the same time in the 60’s the better. They’re salacious trash.
Onto her films, she’s one of the classic stars whose filmography I’ve managed to complete and the tutelage and security she received from MGM can definitely be seen in the difference from her pre-MGM performances and once she was taken under their wing. Drama was never her strong suit but some of her early performances are painful to watch, for instance she’s wretched in The Public Enemy, and while she improved somewhat in the following years comedy was unquestionably her forte.
As to a favorite I have a pre-Code and a post Code choice.
The pre-Code is Red Dust where her performance is even more impressive considering the backstage drama going on, but she was a trouper and never let any of the turmoil of her life interfere with her work. She’s a complete delight, brassy and ballsy but also quite touching. She and Gable (never sexier) exude such an incredible amount of heat, you must wonder what he sees in Mary Astor when she shows up (outside of being Mary Astor of course).
My post-Code choice is the utterly delightful Libeled Lady. All four stars are working at top speed and the script is great. I know that she wanted to be paired with Powell but in this instance the studio was right. Connie Allenbury fits Myrna like a glove as does Gladys similarly suit Jean, and it’s the better part anyway. This is where her Oscar should have been awarded. By the way she had appeared with Spencer Tracy before Riffraff, they made the film Goldie before either of them landed at MGM but it’s not much of a movie.
Metro did move her away from her early platinum glory, but she was a willing participant, and it was wise on both their parts. Her early broads are fantastic, but they could have ended up trapping her in a rut resulting in a fading of popularity when the Code really clamped down on her blatant sexuality. Instead, she moved with the times and that refinement enabled her to sustain her popularity. Where many of her pre-code contemporaries’ success was diminished by the new constraints, she was still an enormously powerful star at the time of her death.
Aside from the two I mentioned I’m also very fond of Dinner at Eight, Wife vs. Secretary, Bombshell and China Seas (the last great example of her platinum period).
While most of her other Metro films are okay if not sensational you have to wonder what the powers that be were thinking with Reckless. Casting a star who could neither sing nor dance and whose strong suit was comedy in a part that required the first two and little of the third and it deals with suicide something you wouldn’t think the studio wanted associated with her so soon after Bern’s. It seems like they were asking for her to fail. Joan Crawford (who didn’t really possess those skills either) was initially cast but pulled shortly before the start date. It’s one of her lesser films.
Her wrap up in Saratoga is a weird viewing experience, most of the time it’s obvious when her double is standing in. It gives the film a cryptic ghoulish feeling, it must have been hell for the actors to finish. It seems like a cash grab but apparently the public wanted to see it, the film ended up being MGM’s biggest money maker of the year based on its budget.
I agree with Joel6 that she should have been nominated for Libeled Lady. Imagine that in the first year of the supporting actress category would have included Jean Harlow.