Mademoiselle Volcan

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.

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.

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.

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!