Polvorilla

Jean Harlow shines as a movie sex starlet who's tired of all the negative publicity drummed up by her studio's publicist (Tracy) to promote her career. she wants to adopt a baby and play "respectable" roles, but society's mavens continually reject her (this "picture girl") and everything she tries to do for herself is thwarted by Tracy, who (more or less) secretly loves her. Very funny and well directed by Fleming, not slapstick as some claim, but more like Hawks/Sturges/Wilder style "screwball."

"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!

Bombshell is one hysterically funny screwball comedy about a movie star played by Jean Harlow, bearing no small resemblance to the real Jean Harlow. Contemporaries of Jean have testified to her wonderful sense of humor and I'm sure she saw the ironies in this film tied to her own life where she too dealt with family hangers-on.

Jean lives with and supports father Frank Morgan, sister Una Merkel, and brother Ted Healy all on her salary as a film star. Being the reigning sex symbol of the screen, she's got men lining up who are interested in her. Those include director Pat O'Brien, playboy Franchot Tone, and no account phony count Ivan Lebedeff and studio press agent Lee Tracy who is relentless in his quest for publicity for Harlow. She's even got some wackadoo played by Billy Dooley who is stalking her claiming to be her real husband. That was actually kind of over the top, we've seen too many stories about people stalking celebrities, that gag did not go over, especially nowadays.

Out of this whole lot, you'll have to figure out who she might get and in my opinion though the deck is clearly stacked towards one of them, for myself I don't think it would have been Jean's lot to have found happiness with any of them.

MGM put a great cast of identifiable character players to support Jean and they make this a most enjoyable film. Yet knowing what we know about Harlow's real life and the leeches she actually did have in it, there is an air of sadness for me permeating the film. Still it's a great example of why Jean Harlow was the star and sex symbol she was back in those Depression days.

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.

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.