Mademoiselle Volcan

"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!

I often wonder if Lee Tracy would be more fondly-remembered by a larger percentage of the public had he been fortunate enough to hang around long enough to appear in films with musical scores. He was pretty much done by 1934, however, so the precious handful of Tracy vehicles we DO have are blessed/cursed by the prevailing conditions of early talkies. Nowadays, fans - especially younger ones - tend to either dismiss them as mildewed antiques that might as well have been made on Mars, or (just as bad) view them with smug condescension as dear, quaint little antiques....like flivvers or biplanes. Nearly every major starring vehicle Tracy made lacks background music, outside of the occasional musical number. Not a strong selling point for the DVD generation, who seemingly can't appreciate a film without a matching SAP, variable do-it-yourself camera angles, and a 'making-of' featurette padding the running time. Thus Lee Tracy - one of our great comic actors, whose presence in a movie automatically enlivens and enriches it - remains an answer to a trivia question nobody asked. In light of the foregoing, take a tip from this corner and preset your VCR the next time TCM schedules any of his films, like BOMBSHELL. Properly regarded as Jean Harlow's best vehicle, this lightning-paced, down-and-dirty sarcastic comedy of Hollywood in the early 30s is one of Tracy's best as well. (Actually, the whole cast, which includes Frank Morgan, Una Merkel and Pat O'Brian, is exemplary.) Tracy is incredible: scheming, scamming, wheedling, utterly insincere and unprincipled, yet never for a moment does he lose the audience's sympathy. His gift was to make you root for the shameless con man despite yourself, and in BOMBSHELL, the entire production is amped up to his speed of delivery. Every second of this movie is breathlessly paced, rudely funny, cynically observant and near-unbelievably satisfying. (If it moved any quicker, it might spontaneously combust.) Forget the (very) slight antique properties that might hamper this film (such as that lack of background music I mentioned) and concentrate on its strengths...one of which, by dint of its Pre-Code status, is a remarkably unapologetic unsentimentality, a virtue which would be swept away by the Hays Office broom in 1934 along with Tracy's career, not to re-emerge on the nation's screens until the rise of the writer-director in the early 40s (men such as Sturges, Huston and Wilder). If you don't love BOMBSHELL on first viewing, you're not as smart as you think you are. Keep an eye out for Tracy's other films (BLESSED EVENT, THE HALF NAKED TRUTH, THE NUISANCE, ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN, DINNER AT EIGHT, etc) and get a close-up look at one of our country's greatest, and most neglected, comedians for yourself.

Jean Harlow is the "Bombshell" of the 1933 film also starring Franchot Tone, Frank Morgan, Lee Tracy, Pat O'Brien, Una Merkel, Isabel Jewell, Louise Beavers, Ted Healy, and C. Aubrey Smith. Harlow plays a star, Lola Burns, who has a career very similar to Jean Harlow's - in fact, she starred in "Red Dust" with Clark Gable! She's the "It" girl where Harlow was the "If" girl.

From the first time we meet Lola, it's obvious that she is overwhelmed by the pressures of her home life, which in turn puts pressure on her career duties:

Her drunken father (Morgan) acts as her business manager but her bills aren't paid and she doesn't have any money; she constantly has to bail her brother out of trouble; there's a newspaper man who prints one lie after another about her; one of the people in her household wears her clothes and steals from her; she has three huge dogs; her brother shows up with a tramp; the assistant director on "Red Dust," Jim Brogan (Pat O'Brien) is in love with her and goes crazy when he sees Hugo, the Marqis de Pisa de Pisa on the set (and it's in his storyline that strong prejudice against immigrants is shown); and her agent (Lee Tracy) is a puppeteer in a sick puppet show - Lola's life.

Lola wants out. She decides that she wants to adopt a child and falls in love with a baby at an orphanage but the home visit is a total disaster. Disgusted with her life and all the leeches around her, she takes off, seeking peace and quiet. It's in peaceful surroundings that she meets the wealthy Gifford Middleton. It's love at first sight. Just when she's meeting Gifford's parents, her father and brother appear.

This is a very funny comedy and also very touching, as Lola's sweet personality and desire for a stable family is evident. She swears to Gifford that she's through with show business but becomes concerned when told there hasn't been anything about her in the papers lately. She's young and has no idea what she really wants. Her agent plays off of this and uses it to his own advantage. To most people, she's a blond gravy train.

All of the actors are terrific. Franchot Tone is hilarious, totally and deliberately WAY over the top saying lines such as the one in the summary box. Harlow is surrounded with the best character actors - Lee Tracy, who despite a scandal in 1934 managed to enjoy a nearly 40-year career is great as Lola's fast-talking scam artist agent; Frank Morgan plays his usual role of a weak man, but not a bad one; Louise Beavers brings spark to the role of a maid; Pat O'Brien is in top form as the volatile Brogan.

But it's Harlow's film, and she keeps up with the frantic pace of the film beautifully. Funny and vulnerable, she's hilarious when she pretends she's upper class, as she's often done in her films - no one has ever pulled that off quite like she has. Certainly one of the most lovable and charismatic actresses ever on screen. It's unbelievable that she didn't have a chance to live a full life. "Bombshell" is one of her best films among a lot of wonderful ones.

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.

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."